Luxembourg and the Netherlands lost a bit of luster as tax havens for some of the world’s biggest companies this week, as the European Union fired its latest salvo aimed at multinational tax dodging.

Yet the Netherlands is on pace to maintain its attractiveness as a tax-friendly address for multinationals, said several tax advisers to big companies. That’s less likely for Luxembourg, they said.

On Wednesday, the EU announced that a tax deal between the Netherlands and Starbucks Corp., and another between Luxembourg and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, constituted illegal state aid. It said each company owed as much as 30 million euros ($34 million) in back taxes.

The move is the latest in a multi-continent crackdown on how companies use addresses across the globe to minimize their tax bills, costing countries as much as $240 billion annually, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. Several tax advisers say they don’t expect the latest rulings to stop the flow of the profits into European tax havens. However, they do say they expect the mix of those havens to gradually change.

David Fuller's view

Multinational companies in particular will inevitably have their own tax specialists and lawyers to help them legally avoid payments where possible.  Moreover, they are often ahead of countries in exploiting loopholes before they are closed, especially as there are also countries specialising in providing tax havens for their multinational clients. 

Under these circumstances this game of financial tag with tax authorities will continue, but it does include a tail risk for some corporations.