Brussels, 09/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - “Fiscus” is the name of the EU's new programme in the field of tax and customs, the launch of which was announced by the European Commission on Wednesday 9 November. The programme will allow the member states to improve the collection of customs revenue and help them to fight fraud and imports of counterfeit goods for the period 2014-2020. It will allow the EU to “continue to protect citizens, businesses and the public finances” by making the competent administrations more effective and faster-acting. It will reinforce the single market and the customs union, facilitate trade, protect innovation and help to make substantial savings, said Commissioner for Taxation and the Customs Union Algirdas Semeta in his presentation.
This new programme, which will run over a seven-year period starting from 1 January 2014, will have a budget of €777.6 million over seven years and is the result of the merger of two separate programmes currently in place - Fiscalis 2013 and Customs 2013 - in the field of taxation and customs respectively. It will support cooperation between the tax and customs authorities and other parties, for example by promoting an exchange of information and shared competencies. This will be achieved by reinforcing the networking of the national administrations and joint training actions for tax and customs agents, and by funding state-of-the-art IT systems in both areas. Every euro invested in these areas should make it possible to save at least four, notably by reducing the administrative costs, facilitating interactions and avoiding duplication of effort, the Commission states. On this, the commissioner stressed that the excellent results achieved so far by the tax and customs administrations in terms of revenue gathering, fighting fraud and counterfeiting and savings made by the computerised treatment of dossiers and tax declarations could be improved even further.
The fundamental novelty of this programme compared to its predecessors is the fact that tax and customs come under a single heading with a raft of common objectives. The new programme will extend what its predecessors used to cover. For example, expert teams will be provided to pool knowledge and assist joint actions, particularly in the field of information technologies. For taxation, it will have a broader scope than the current programme, as it will also cover all taxes subject to European legislation rather than just VAT, excise and income and capital tax as currently. Additionally, its objectives now also focus on the fight against fraud, reducing the administrative and conformity charges, as well as cooperation with other states and parties.
This means that the new programme will make it possible to face new challenges anticipated by the customs and tax administrations in years to come, such as developing online commerce, increases in the volume and speed of commercial trade and new forms of fraud. (FG/transl.fl)