Infringement proceedings

The EU Commission swings into action with some treaty infringement related proceedings. It has decided to take Sweden to the ECJ about the country's practise not to grant tax deductibility for pensions contributions paid to insurers resident abroad (but within the EEA) in line with the EET principle. Strangely, there seems to be no reference to the Pensions Directive.

In other news, the Commission is satisfied with recent modifications of Spanish legislation which also did not allow for tax deductibility of cross-border pensions contributions. The infringement case against Spain is therefore closed - in this case with reference to the Pensions Directive btw. Notably, the new Spanish tax rules explicitly allow deductibility for IORPs resident in the EEA, and specifically Liechtenstein, which removes an important legal uncertainty with Liechtenstein IORPs, at least with regards to their relation to Spain.