The New European Property Registry is Ready

The New European Property Registry is Ready

At the Ecofin Council, the 27 Finance Ministers of the Member States Approved Their Position on the Directive on the Registry of Assets of the EU Tax Authorities

The DAC8, relating to administrative cooperation in the tax sector, was approved by the finance ministers of the 27 member states of the European Union, in the EU Council, effectively expanding the European tax asset register to include cryptocurrencies and information on agreements taxes for particularly high-net-worth taxpayers. The provision updates the old directive which provided for the automatic exchange of economic and financial data, making it now more complete.

The new legislation will now affect all agreements between European tax administrations with all citizens residing in the Union who own one million euros of net wealth or more, whether it is investable or managed. The new asset register will involve, for example, all wealthy residents of the European Union who have concluded an agreement to benefit from the 100,000 euro flat tax developed by the Renzi government to attract investments in Italy, in force since 2007.

At this point, the proposal can be consulted by the European Parliament which, possibly, will have the right to express opinions on the matter but will not be able to modify its main characteristics with legislative power. The approval of the legislation, therefore, should take place in a relatively short time and the same presidency of the Swedish Council, currently in office in the European semester, has made the approval of the proposal a priority so as to make it operational as early as 1 January 2026 at the same time as the approval of the OECD tool for reporting on cryptocurrencies, respecting the time limits imposed by the regulation on crypto-assets.

Thanks to the new European asset register, the competent authorities will automatically and compulsorily share all the information that the crypto-asset service providers will have to communicate. The new regulation will also affect all crypto-assets issued in a decentralized manner, including virtual tokens and some non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as already indicated, in part, by the regulation on crypto-asset markets (MiCA). The envisaged obligations will also be addressed to all tax and financial service providers connected to EU residents.

From the date of activation of the new regulations, banking secrecy relating to cryptocurrencies will be definitively eliminated and the Revenue Agency will have all the data not yet accessible for the tax assessment of European residents available, allowing complete knowledge of the real assets of the millionaires of the European Union.

Currently, the provisions of the DAC do not contemplate the exchange of data relating to information on dividends from current accounts not in custody and similar income, while, with the expansion of the new balance sheet, it may be envisaged for the purposes of having a tax census by the entities European financial. The Regulation of the crypto-asset markets (MiCA) and the rules on information relating to transfers of funds and certain types of crypto-assets is currently integrated by the DAC8, together with the Transfer of Funds Regulation (Tfr), approved at the end of April and for which the formal approval of the Board has been received. The Transfer of Funds Regulation introduces the rules inherent to crypto transfers defined as “travel rules” according to which all information on the source of the assets and the beneficiary must necessarily “travel” through a specific transaction and must be compulsorily kept by both parties interested in the exchange. The new rules will also cover transactions exceeding 1,000 euros from un-hosted wallets when they interact with all wallets managed directly by crypto-asset service providers.