Brussels, 04/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - At the annual seminary held on 1 and 2 April in Cernobbio by The European House Ambrosetti (EUROPE 10350), EU Commissioner for Taxation Algirdas Šemeta laid particular emphasis on the need for fiscal coordination at the level of the EU27, with a view to achieving the objective of the 2020 strategy for balanced, sustainable and inclusive growth.
He stated that this coordination should first of all make it possible for the member states to consolidate their public finances without penalising growth and competitiveness. In so doing, the states must agree on the best way to increase their fiscal revenue, focusing on taxing new sources of revenue (consumption, environment taxes, financial sector) rather than on work. At the same time, their agreement must focus on targeted incentives in favour of employment, innovation and long-term investment. This policy constitutes the extra efforts needed to bring down public spending to re-balance the national budgets hit hard by deficits.
Another plank, he continued, is coordination to remove tax barriers within the single market and to stimulate economic activity and European competitiveness. The commissioner referred to the common consolidated corporate tax base (EUROPE 10338) and greater harmonisation in VAT matters. The future VAT strategy will make further work towards this possible.
The final major point was the need for fiscal coordination to ensure fair competition and to fight tax evasion. If, the Commissioner argued, tax competition can be “a good thing”, it must be ensured that this does not endanger the states' capacity to collect the revenue they can legitimately expect. The tool to respond to this problem is the code of conduct on corporate tax, a non-binding mutual assessment instrument to allow the member states to evaluate the negative effects of their tax measures and to correct them. Lastly, the commissioner stressed the fight against VAT fraud (which has been put at 12% of revenue), which should also come under the heading of this future strategy, as well as tightening up tax on savings and tax cooperation agreements with the EU's neighbour states (such as Switzerland). (F.G./transl.fl)