Tax and Legal News – July, August 2026

Another (very hot) season is behind us

June is traditionally a very busy month for most of our loyal readers, and this year we really worked up a sweat again. The weather didn’t help, underscoring this with some impressive temperature records of 40+ degrees during the last weekend before the filing deadline.

And it’s no longer just about filing a tax return. There haven’t been any dramatic legislative changes this year. A few are still in the works and are stuck somewhere in the legislative process. So the tax administration has at least spiced things up by requiring us to append all gift agreements. There have been plenty of lively discussions about whether a table with all the details is sufficient, whether to just copy hundreds of pages or to wait for a request.

For those of you who “fell under the pillar” in 2024 (i.e. the OECD BEPS 2.0 initiative, the global minimum tax, Pillar 2), we hope it wasn’t literal and that it didn’t kill you. We all knew it would be complicated—a mountain of rules and thousands of pages of interpretations, diving into international accounting standards, calculations demanding extensive input data and maneuvering in safe harbors. Plus, it was the first reporting period, so there was a lack of preparation on all fronts. But few expected it would be such a nightmare. And it was far from over on June 30.

If you didn’t enjoy the “pillar,” then perhaps you at least enjoyed the Unified Monthly Employer Report (JMHZ). That turned out really well, too. With a nice idea and the goal of simplifying everything, it turned into a monstrous ordeal for everyone who hadn’t had it nearly this complicated before. It’s still being supplemented and clarified to this day. Apparently, things became so intense that the tax administration declared the JMHZ one of the legitimate reasons for extending the income tax return filing deadline. 

Those of you who deal (in addition to the above?) with indirect taxes may have had the chance to delve into EET (Electronic Sales Registration), which, in its new form, has raised a number of interesting questions, e.g. for corporations that collect money at their business locations on behalf of someone else (various forms of agency and cooperation) or for logistics companies that handle cash-on-delivery payments in some form.

If you export to the U.S. and your goods were subject to import duties, you are surely already hard at work getting them refunded following the U.S. courts’ decision (the deadline is extremely tight and the clock is ticking).

For those who’ve already finished everything and are bored, the European Commission issued the tax omnibus on June 24 with the aim of simplifying the tax system and boosting competitiveness. You can read more about it in one of our articles. It’s a bit of a “promises, promises” situation, though, since the announced effective date is 2029, and for some of the more attractive provisions, as late as 2032 or 2037.