Together with 16 other Member States, Malta has been the object of a package of decisions adopted by the EU Commission and notices sent on 20 July 2023 for failure to transpose public country by country reporting into national legislation. Each Member State has 2 months to reply to the Commission, in an attempt to prevent an issue of a reasoned opinion.

The 30 June 2023 deadline for corporate tax filings has been extended by the Maltese Revenue which announced that filing of corporate income tax returns for year of assessment 2022 will be delayed by a month to the end of July 2023.

After finding strategic deficiencies in the countries’ AML/CFT systems, on 23 June 2023 the FATF added Cameroon, Croatia, and Vietnam to the FATF grey list.

The European Commission published an adjusted package for the next generation of own resources, proposing the replacement of a temporary statistical-based own resource linked to the corporate sector by a contribution from Business in Europe: Framework for Income Taxation (BEFIT). Previously known as the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), BEFIT is yet to be approved by all EU Member States.

The European Commission proposed new rules aimed at simplifying and harmonizing withholding tax procedures in the EU. The FASTER proposed directive, as it is known by its goal of making relief of excess withholding taxes faster and safer, includes a common EU digital tax residence certificate, two fast-track procedures complementing the existing standard refund procedure, and a standardized reporting obligation.

The Maltese Revenue released guidelines on tax benefits for investment services and insurance expatriates under Article 6 of the Income Tax Act.

Prior to taking up the presidency of the Council of the EU on 1st July 2023, Spain issued a release indicating its priorities for the second half of 2023. Notably, tax could not but have been included, with Spain highlighting as one of its priorities the establishment of minimum and common standards of corporate taxation in all Member States and combating tax evasion by large multinationals.

At the beginning of June, the Malta Gaming Authority released its 2022 Annual Report, wherein Gross Value Added (GVA) generated by the industry for the said year was recorded at €1.5 billion, circa 9.6% of Malta’s GVA.

The OECD published the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and amended the Common Reporting Standard (CRS), introducing reporting obligations on and extending automatic exchange of information to crypto assets.

ECOFIN agreed on New Transparency Rules Concerning Crypto-Asset Transaction Reporting known as the eighth amendment to the Directive on Administrative Cooperation or (DAC8).