In a press release issued by the European Council, action has been taken to prevent tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning by corporates. Such action came in the form of a new anti-abuse clause which had been added to the Parent-Subsidiary Directive.

The objective of the new clause is twofold. Firstly, to stop the Directive being used as a vehicle for tax avoidance and schemes that are not genuine in nature. The second objective is to achieve greater consistency in the application of the Directive across all Member States.

All Member States, including Ireland, will have until 31 December 2015 to implement the anti-abuse clause into national law.