BEFIT: Harmoniserande eller komplicerande - en studie av BEFIT och dess potentiella inverkningar på svensk bolagsbeskattning

Sammanfattning

For a long time, the European Commission has unsuccessfully tried to in-troduce a common consolidated tax base for groups operating within the EU. The latest attempt, the directive proposal BEFIT, was presented in 2023. The purpose of BEFIT is to introduce regulations that result in a common consolidated tax base for larger groups within the EU, enable cross-border loss relief for these and reduce compliance work for the cov-ered groups. BEFIT was presented after several comprehensive directives in the field of direct taxation were adopted by the EU. The EU-commission therefore see an opportunity to successfully create common rules in this area as well. The purpose of the essay is to investigate and comment on BEFIT's regula-tions for the determination of a common tax base for groups. A comparison will then be made between BEFIT's regulations for determining tax bases and the Swedish regulations that govern the corresponding areas. Finally, the potential effects of an implementation of BEFIT's regulations on Swe-dish corporate taxation are analysed. It can be stated that BEFIT contains a long series of detailed provisions that deal with both the types of items to be included in groups' tax bases and how the tax base is then to be distributed between the various group companies. However, BEFIT contains many undefined concepts and ambi-guities that make it difficult to interpret the draft directive. In many parts, the regulations differ significantly from the Swedish regulations in the corresponding area. Among other things, BEFIT's regulations result in Swedish companies using other accounting standards than Swedish GAAP and/or IFRS, which can lead to differences between the result and tax base for different Swedish companies. There are also significant differences between how different types of items in the accounting are treated accord-ing to BEFIT and according to Swedish law. However, one of the biggest effects would be the possibilities for lowered requirements for loss-relief for the companies covered by BEFIT compared to those who are covered by Swedish regulations. There is also an increased risk that BEFIT would facilitate tax planning as a new valuation of the company's assets must be made upon entry into a BEFIT-group. This can lead to untaxed value in-creases. Finally, it can be stated that BEFIT's ambiguities and lack of defi-nitions result in difficulties in interpreting the regulations and may lead to uncertainties regarding what is the applicable law. An alternative to reme-dy the difficulties of interpreting the regulations that should further be studied could be to stipulate that all entities covered by BEFIT or future proposals should use IFRS.