European tax challenges for the music business: how can we do better

There are obstacles for touring through Europe and artist taxation, social security and VAT rules are three of them. At the moment, touring can easily lead to double taxation because both the country of the performance and the residence country want to tax the performance fee. And without an A1 certificate, it is likely that also social security contributions have to be paid everywhere. Some countries have VAT exemptions and others not, which can also cause conflicts. Mobility is obstructed by the administrative work and financial setbacks. These problems can be solved at European level, but decision makers don’t have them on their priority list until now.

This panel will discuss how this can be changed.
- First, an explanation of the problems will be given with practical examples.
- Second, the already available practical solutions will be explained.
- Third, the new solutions for other European topics will be introduced and applied to the artist mobility problems.
- Fourth, an European action plan will be developed at the end of the panel.