The European Commission has proposed tough new transparency rules for intermediaries – such as tax advisors, accountants, banks and lawyers – who design and promote tax planning schemes for their clients. Recent media leaks such as the Panama Papers have exposed how some intermediaries actively assist companies and individuals to escape taxation, usually through complex cross-border schemes. The proposal announced on 21 June aims to tackle such aggressive tax planning by increasing scrutiny around the previously-unseen activities of tax planners and advisers. Cross-border tax planning schemes bearing certain characteristics or ‘hallmarks’ that can result in losses for governments will now have to be automatically reported to the tax authorities before they are used. The Commission has identified key hallmarks, including the use of losses to reduce tax liability, the use of special beneficial tax regimes, or arrangements through countries that do not meet international good governance standards.