Harm van den Broek appointed professor of Tax Law

A major theme of van den Broek's research is the influence of the European Merger Directive and the European freedom of establishment on the Dutch tax treatment of domestic and cross-border mergers, demergers and conversions of companies. His research focuses on how the tax legislator can shape its legislative objectives without discriminating against foreign companies or employees and without hindering Dutch companies and individuals from taking advantage of their freedoms within the European Union.

'Although the levying of income tax and profit tax falls within the competence of European member states, member states are increasingly adopting European directives on taxation,' the new professor said. 'This makes the question of whether national tax legislation complies with these European directives and whether these directives are in line with fundamental European treaty freedoms increasingly important.'

About Harm van den Broek

Van den Broek (Nijmegen, 1971) obtained his MA in Dutch Law from Utrecht University in 1993, and an MA in Tax Law from the University of Amsterdam in 1997. From 1998 to 2001, he worked as a policy officer at the Ministry of Finance. From 2001, he worked as a tax consultant at Loyens & Loeff and from 2005 to 2014 part-time at Deloitte.

Since 2005, he has been a researcher and lecturer in tax law at Radboud University. There he obtained his PhD in 2011, with a dissertation entitled 'Cross-Border Mergers Within the EU: Proposals to Remove the Remaining Tax Obstacles.' The thesis examines the tax consequences of cross-border legal mergers between companies from different EU member states. The central question is which tax obstacles are removed by the European Tax Merger Directive, and by invoking the European freedom of establishment. The thesis makes some 20 proposals to amend the Merger Directive to remove existing tax obstacles, while respecting the legitimate financial interests of EU Member States.

In 2015 and 2016, he was a guest lecturer at the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University and visiting professor in Turin in 2017. Since 2017 he has also been a deputy judge at the Tax Chamber of the 's-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal. He is also a member of the Principles of EU Law Committee of the Tax Science Association, and between 2020 and 2022 he was a member of the independent Childcare Benefit Objections Advisory Committee. Since February 2022, he has been the head of the Tax Law department and chair of the MA programme in Tax Law.

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