The Implications of Making Tax Crimes a Predicate Crime for Money Laundering in the EU

This chapter sheds light on the divergence of tax crimes and money laundering laws across Europe after the implementation of the 4th Anti Money Laundering Directive. Laws are a crucial part of the tax environment as they are one of the rules under which the tax ecosystem operates. Taxpayers should pay their taxes following the law, and tax experts should advise them within the realm of it. The chapter sees the 4th AMLD as a shock that put money laundering regulation inside the tax ecosystem, and the way that countries implement this in their regulation is the response to this shock; it uses an innovative comparative approach that involves the analysis of tax evasion through an empirical legal lens. The chapter includes a dataset built by the authors with the legislation of all European Union countries regarding tax crimes and money laundering, as well as other relevant legal variables.