On December 8th, 2022, the European Commission presented a proposal for the seventh amendment to the Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of direct taxation (DAC 8), requiring crypto-asset providers to report transactions by their EU clients. The directive was unanimously adopted by member states in the Council on October 17th, 2023, and published in the Official Journal on October 24th, 2023. The aim of the directive is to enable the tax authorities to better track crypto-asset income through the cross-border exchange of information, thus countering the problem of tax evasion and avoidance. In addition to the reporting obligation, the directive also contains other changes, such as a provision relating to high-net-worth individuals. Nadine Chiba takes a critical look at the amendments to the directive.
