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Post by alanbond on Sept 8, 2021 23:41:10 GMT 4
Luxembourg’s tax authority is acting well within its rights when it sends letters to residents stating that it suspects they have potential undeclared foreign income, Finance Minister Pierre Gramegna has said, despite the country struggling to shake off its own reputation as a tax haven.
Such correspondence, issued by the country’s Inland Revenue, L’Administration des contributions directes (ACD), is entirely legitimate as “part of the tax investigation procedure”, Gramegna said on Tuesday in response to a written parliamentary question from Social Democrats (CSV) deputy Gilles Roth.
Roth questioned whether there is a legal basis for the letters and whether they should be considered appropriate, saying that they contain a direct accusation that people are not declaring foreign income.
“The content of (the letters) can be summarised as follows: I have received information that you are in possession of income and/or a wealth sourced from abroad… these details do not appear in your tax returns,” Roth said.
“Does the Minister not consider that in the absence of more precise details, the letters can be classified as “phishing mails”? In other words, shouldn’t ACD provide resident taxpayers with more precise details relating to the origin of the information?,” added the CSV deputy.
Gramegna defended the use of the letters, describing them as “in no way…phishing emails (or) phishing expeditions” but saying such correspondence is based “on concrete, relevant data previously communicated to the ACD by automatic exchange of information (between tax authorities)”.
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