Tax Crime and Money Laundering

The latest and fourth EU directive on money laundering and terrorist financing adds tax crimes to the list of predicate offenses for money laundering. At the moment, EU Member States are implementing this directive. Our analysis shows that what actually constitutes a tax crime in the EU Member States differs considerably. This raises multiple questions: What is the consequence of this policy change for the amount of money laundering in EU Member States? What does this mean for the already existing preventive and repressive policies in the fields of tax avoidance and tax evasion? How does this relate to the new era in tackling tax abuse based upon policy innovation at the OECD, EU and national levels? Is this an actual shift in the width of anti-money laundering policy or do the EU Member States simply rename offenses such as tax fraud (already a predicate offence for money laundering in the Third EU directive)?