Luxembourg tax office hiring campaign flounders

Plans to hire hundreds of new people at the Luxembourg tax office to deal with a tidal wave of added paperwork were off to a slow start, the head of the body said in July, highlighting the country's struggle to attract expert staff. The tax office – which is catching up to bring its computer systems up to speed – has hired just 32 people so far this year, well short of the target of 180 posts. “The tax office has been granted an additional 180 posts for 2022. They will all be advertised this year. We will launch greater job advertisements in the coming days and weeks,” said Pascale Toussing, director of the tax office. Toussing had earlier said the recruitment target for this year was 140 posts, out of a total of 500 new jobs for the period 2022-2026. Luxembourg was looking to beef up its tax office as it faces a heavier workload due to new international tax regulations, the Luxembourg Times reported in February. Amongst the new rules is an EU law that would force digital platform operators to tell the tax office how much money their users make. Another, called Unshell, if adopted would compel thousands of Luxembourg holding companies to prove they were not set up for tax purposes only, resulting in another cascade of paperwork. Yet the drive for more staff was not directly in relation to the new bureaucratic burden. “The tax office has launched a [...] modernisation and digitalisation project. The hiring spree you are referring to should be seen in this context,” Toussing said.