“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg… There is an increasing trend for national tax legislation to be challenged in the European court and each case could prove costly to the UK exchequer”

The upshot? Tax rises all round, most likely, though some are predicting this could be the start of some form of EU-wide tax harmonisation, one of those long-lurking monsters under the European bed. Tax, eh? It’s great! (Speaking of which, anyone want to become my accountant? I can offer to pay you precisely no money, thanks to being utterly broke.)

Update: Jerome a Paris points out another possibility:

“What this could mean is that companies will be authorised to centralise their profits in an affiliate in European country with the lowest tax rates, and pay taxes only there, by creating losses (fairly easy with smart transfer pricing when you have subsidiaries all over the place) in high tax jurisdictions and profit in others.”

So then, how do I go about setting up subsidiaries to myself in countries with low taxes?