The Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) is currently modifying its “Handbook” in order to take into account the agreement reached on 12 April, especially on the funds of funds issue.
As part of the reworking of the handbook, ALFI underlines that the “Taxation of Savings Directive” is of direct interest to the Luxembourg fund industry as more than 70% of funds distributed in at least two EU member States are registered in the Grand Duchy.
Many coordination meetings have taken place with representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Revenue Taxation Authorities, the ABBL and within the European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA). ALFI, which has been actively preparing the implementation of the Directive for almost two years, has notably consulted with the investment fund associations of the major countries applying a withholding tax regime (Austria, Belgium and Switzerland). It notes that in the funds area, there is no appreciable divergence in interpretation between these countries. The recognition in other countries of the data provided by the fund’s country of registration (“home country rule”) should therefore not be questioned.
The actors of the sector are currently testing IT systems developed specifically for this purpose, and they have undertaken to gather the relevant information in order to transmit it to CCLux, which centralizes this data and puts it at the disposal of interested parties. Luxembourg investment funds will be ready to meet the deadline of 1st July 2005.
Given the numerous very technical aspects and the substantial cost this implementation has generated for the European investment fund industry, ALFI calls on European policy-makers not to further amend the text of the directive or its interpretation.