Today, the PensionsEurope Board of Directors accepted Insurance & Pension Denmark as its newest member. Insurance & Pension Denmark is the trade association of insurance and pension companies in Denmark. They represent about 80 insurance and pension funds in the Danish market and play an important role in solving the challenges of the welfare state by supplementing public welfare provisions. The Danish pension funds hold more than € 500 billion in investments in Denmark and abroad. Read more in our press release here.

In its feedback to the European commission, PensionsEurope welcomes the Commission’s roadmap on the new EU system for the avoidance of double taxation and prevention of tax abuse in the field of withholding taxes (WHT). We support the current Commission´s mandate call for removing all barriers to the completion of the Capital Markets Union (CMU) –  particularly in the field of simplifying taxation.

PensionsEurope agrees with the objective that a standardised relief at source system becomes the principal mechanism for WHT relief procedures and their streamlining. We have stressed for a long time that the relief at source is the best practice for pension funds. We warmly welcome the action of the Commission ‘Action Plan for fair and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy’ to introduce a common, standardised EU-wide system for withholding tax relief at source.

However, there are also many other recent WHT proposals which the EC should thoroughly consider. PensionsEurope has proposed to the Commission to establish an EU tax register of recognised pension institutions in order that Member States can reciprocally and automatically recognise pension institutions. Furthermore, in many countries pension institutions invest cross border via specialised investments funds and/or vehicles to increase the economies of scale, and it is important to ensure a tax-neutral treatment of these investment structures as well.

Today, PensionsEurope sent a letter to Commissioner Mairead McGuinness on pension scheme arrangements' (PSAs) clearing with the UK CCPs. In that letter, PensionsEurope requested the Commission to grant one year extension to the current equivalence decision in relation to UK CCPs. In exchange, PSAs are willing to continue actively reducing their exposures to UK CCPs, and open and hold active accounts within the EU based CCPs. You can read the letter here.