The EU’s FASTER Directive aims to simplify and accelerate withholding tax relief procedures across Europe. While these objectives are broadly supported by the financial industry, the final legislative text raises important questions regarding its compatibility with GDPR principles.
Our latest paper examines whether the Directive’s extensive investor-level reporting obligations, including the transmission of sensitive personal data through the full chain of financial intermediaries, meet the requirements of data minimisation, necessity and proportionality under EU data protection law. It also explores how the final Directive differs from the original proposal reviewed by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and what this means for legal certainty and implementation.
The paper calls on the European Commission to revisit these issues in the context of the Tax Omnibus initiative and encourages Member States to make implementation choices that minimise privacy risks while preserving the objectives of FASTER.
We welcome the discussion with policymakers, tax authorities, market infrastructures and financial institutions on how to strike the right balance between tax transparency, operational efficiency and fundamental data protection rights.
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