"European Commission adopts new corporate tax avoidance rules", 12 Jul 2016

The new directive, first proposed last month, was adopted...as part of the OECD recommendations package to address tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS).

The EC said the new rules will discourage multinationals from artificially shifting their debt to jurisdictions with more generous deductibility rules by limiting the amount of interest that the taxpayer is entitled to deduct in a tax year.

The new directive will also apply exit taxation rules, in order to prevent tax base erosion, and general anti-abuse rules, which will cover gaps in a country’s specific anti-abuse rules...

Rules on hybrid mismatches will also be introduced in a bid to stop corporations taking advantage of disparities between national tax systems...

ActionAid criticised the EC's directive, however, arguing that the directive has been "watered down to the point of making it almost meaningless"...

Theresa May...said in a speech yesterday that she will launch a renewed tax crackdown on multinational companies during her term...She said, "It doesn't matter to me whether you're Amazon, Google or Starbucks, you have a duty to put something back, you have a debt to your fellow citizens, you have a responsibility to pay your taxes...