The obligation imposed on a lawyer to inform other intermediaries involved in a scheme to combat aggressive tax planning violates professional secrecy, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday 8 December (Case C-694/20).
The Administrative Cooperation Directive (2011/16/EU) requires all intermediaries involved in potentially aggressive cross-border tax planning to report this to the tax authorities because of a risk of tax evasion and fraud.
This obligation...