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Thijs van Luijt

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Thijs van Luijt is an associate within Amsterdam Indirect Tax team. He joined the firm in 2019.

Introduction of an EU Customs Agency is becoming more and more tangible. This idea of a “European Customs Agency” was first proposed on 31 March 2022 by the “Wise Persons Group on Challenges Facing the Customs Union”. More recently, on 28 February 2023, during the 62nd Plenary Meeting of the Trade Contact Group set up by the European Commission, the creation of an EU Customs Authority was once again discussed alongside the introduction of an EU Customs Data Hub and further simplification of customs processes.

On 13 December 2022, a provisional agreement has been reached between the EU Council and the European Parliament on the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). This mechanism will be set up to align the price of carbon for EU products covered by the EU Emission Trading Scheme with the price of carbon for imported goods from outside the EU. CBAM will contribute to ensure that the climate efforts of the EU are not undermined by shifting EU production to countries with less ambitious climate ambitions.

On 8 December 2022, the European Commission proposed a text amending Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. DAC8 provides, among other things, the following: changes to the existing DAC framework, rules on advance cross-border rulings for high-net-worth individuals, and a crypto-asset reporting framework for competent EU authorities.

On June 9, 2022, the European Court of Justice issued its decision in case C-599/20 (Baltic Master UAB). This case provides more clarity on the concept of related persons, which allows customs authorities to disregard the transactions value and instead use different valuation methods to determine the customs value of imported goods. EU customs law provides for an exhaustive list in determining when (legal) persons are related and in which situations customs authorities can substantiate such a relationship.

New Intrastat requirements will enter into force as of January 2022. Intrastat is the EU’s system to track the movement of goods between countries of the EU. Authorities use the statistical data on international trade obtained with Intrastat for example when negotiating trade agreements and to monitoring of the functioning of the internal market.