Brussels, 06/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - Last week's European summit recognised that in the coming years, tax policy would be a key aspect of budget consolidation and growth in the EU, alongside structural reforms, jobs and social inclusion, said EU Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta in his opening talk at the Brussels Tax Forum 2012 which he chaired on 5-6 March.
The commissioner said that the summit had expressly supported the action taken by the European Commission to boost tax cohesion and the single market through initiatives such as energy tax, a common consolidated tax basis for company tax, a financial transactions tax (FTT) and savings tax. The heads of state and government, he said, also back the Commission's approach of improving taxation by using it to reduce budget deficits and to boost economic growth while taking account of differences among the member states.
In the eurozone, Semeta said that there were problems like: - poor tax coordination, which is needed to strengthen the economic arm of the eurozone alongside the monetary arm; - a need to boost growth by changing the way fiscal policies operate in order to stop taxing areas that need to be encouraged (like income and savings) and instead move taxation to areas where fewer distortions would be created or to tax undesirables (like waste and pollution); - the option of using tax as a way of compensating for loss of flexibility from variable exchange rates; - a need to ensure that the European Union's tax objectives are not seen as tax competition, which would be damaging to the member states; - reducing tax on labour by transferring it to VAT; - introducing greater homogeneity and removing national tax measures that hinder the expansion of the single market.
These problems will be addressed over the next few months. The Brussels Tax Forum served as a useful springboard for debate among stakeholders. (FG/transl.fl)