ATOZ Insights - July 2016

It would seem that governments at all levels want to pass legislation before breaking for the summer holidays!

At local level, a draft law introducing the first tax measure announced by the Luxembourg Government at the beginning of this year has already become law and is now effective. This law deals with the temporary favourable individual tax regime applicable to certain gains realised on the sale of real estate assets. The draft law introducing the remaining 2017 tax reform measures has been adopted by the Government and should be published in the coming weeks. Over the month of June, the Luxembourg tax authorities released 3 different circulars to adapt previously released circulars to recent changes in Net Wealth Tax. In addition, a draft law was presented to Parliament to anticipate an important change to the US-Luxembourg tax treaty. This draft law is expected to have a significant impact on US branch structures. At local level as well, the Luxembourg Parliament has passed some important legislation: on 13 July 2016,the long-awaited law to modernise the Luxembourg law on commercial companies as well as the law which introduces the simplified private limited liability company (société à responsabilité limitée simplifiée,Sàrl-S),which should give start-ups a boost and on 14 July 2016,the law creating the Reserved Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF),a new investment vehicle meant to close the gap between highly regulated investment vehicles and unregulated AIFs. The Luxembourg legal publication regime for companies and associations has also been reformed. In the alternative investment fund sector, the CSSF (financial sector regulator) addressed the issues of loan origination, as well as loan participation/acquisition by alternative investment funds (AIFs).Last but not least, Luxembourg has now implemented the EU...