IN n. 1,658/2016: recent changes on Brazilian tax havens’ list

Normative Ruling n. 1,658, dated September 13th, 2016, published yesterday, amended Normative Ruling n. 1,037, dated June 4, 2010, which establishes the lists of low tax jurisdictions and privileged tax regimes.

The main changes can be summarized as follows:

- Netherlands Antilles, St. Kitts and Nevis were excluded from the list of low tax jurisdictions.

- Ireland, Curacao and São Martín were included in the list of low tax jurisdictions.

- The tax regime applicable to legal entities incorporated under the form of “holding company” in Austria is now considered a privileged tax regime.

- According to the new rule, for the purposes of identifying the privileged tax regimes of holding companies incorporated in Denmark and Netherlands, under the form of “holding company”, it should be understood that the company has “substantial economic activity” when it has, in its country of residence, appropriated operational capacity for its purposes, evidenced, among others factors by means of (i) sufficient number of employees to develop its activities and (ii) physical facilities for the exercise of its management and decisions related to (a) the development of activities in order to get income derived from its assets; and (b) the administration of equity interest in order to get income arising from the distribution of profit and capital gain.

Normative Ruling N. 1,658 entered into force on September 14th, 2016, with retroactive effects as from August 1st, 2016.

This Report was elaborated with collaboration of Camila Leão Borges, Ricardo Maitto and Camila Chierighini Nazar.