Back in the days when there were twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound, there was an urban myth of a retired Maths teacher who runs into his worst student as the latter climbs out of a Rolls Royce. The younger man embraces his old nemesis, proceeds to thank him for the great Maths education that enabled him to succeed, and declares: ‘I buy ties for a pound, sell them for one pound ten shillings (Google translate: £1.50), which means a ten per cent gross profit. My after-tax earnings are amazing’.

As 2018 was drawing to a close, Holland appeared to be having a similar problem with basic Maths in meeting its commitments to the European Union, albeit that the EU had itself been guilty of gross bureaucratic circumlocution.

In 2016, the EU issued its ambiguously entitled, ‘Anti Tax Avoidance Directive’, which might have been the credo of our low-taxed tie entrepreneur had it not been for the fact that the text made very clear that this was a pro-tax directive aimed at ensuring there was no avoidance. It was however a warning that members would be dealing with poor-language damage control. The Directive directed that interest limitations, exit tax, hybrid arrangements and controlled foreign corporations (CFCs) all had to be dealt with in individual national legislation by the end of 2018. So far, so clear.

As summer gave way to autumn (and, in some cases autumn gave way to winter) member states seemed to inexplicably vie for last place in the legislating stakes, despite having no ultimate choice – even the hapless British, who were hanging off the edge of the EU, had to comply.

As the stragglers came on board, thanks to the abovementioned Dutch, there was one curiosity deserving attention. The Controlled Foreign Corporation (CFC) has been with us since the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC) in October 1962, when John F Kennedy (JFK) signed the US version into law. In a nutshell, despite jurisdictions adopting various incarnations of CFC, the underlying nous is that certain income either parked in or diverted to a low-tax jurisdiction is to be taxed on a current basis in the hands of the parent as if a dividend has been distributed.

One of the features common to most CFC regimes is that the calculations are objective – identify the item and tax it. The EU version offers two options to choose from. Option A is the traditional method – identifying specific types of income, while Option B has CFC provisions stepping in where state-of-the-art Transfer Pricing isn’t satisfactory. Option B is clearly subjective, and seems to beg to be ignored (when was the last time a company volunteered that its transfer pricing wasn’t up to much?)

Common to both methods, however, is the ownership level triggering CFC, and the rate of tax below which the CFC legislation can apply. That last point is where the Netherlands  appear to have lost track of the numbers, and the EU to have lost track of its mind.

We all surely remember the ‘great’ mind-reading trick of our youth – telling some unwitting stooge (usually a younger brother) to ‘think of a number, double it, add X, divide by two, and take away the number you first thought of’. The answer, due to the rudiments of Mathematics, was always X/2.

Well, the Directive establishes low-tax for CFC purposes by the following calculation:

‘The actual corporate tax paid on its profits by the entity or permanent establishment is lower than the difference between the corporate tax that would have been charged on the entity or permanent establishment under the applicable corporate tax system in the Member State of the taxpayer and the actual corporate tax paid on its profits by the entity or permanent establishment.

Now, as hard as I try, I  cannot interpret this gobbledygook as anything other than a horribly complex and roundabout way of arriving at half the parent company’s corporate tax rate. Almost all the EU member countries appeared to come to the same conclusion. However, not the Dutch. Perhaps the official Dutch translator in Brussels was drunk or stoned, but after a lot of bellybutton watching in recent months over an initially proposed 7%, they finally plumped at the eleventh hour for 9%. Despite wrestling with every combination of current and proposed higher-income and lower-income Dutch corporate tax rates, I could not justify 7% or 9% when fed into the above ‘equation’.

So, what is happening? As far as I can see – nothing. The EU bureaucracy is in Christmas hibernation, with instructions only to be aroused from its slumber by occasional wake-up coughs from the tiresome British.

It will be interesting to see if, now we are in the New Year, anybody notices.

Happy New Year – especially to my Dutch friends.