Brussels, 16/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, made a speech to the United Nations' General Assembly in New York on Monday 15 April calling for a global clampdown on tax evasion ahead of a G20 finance ministers summit in Washington on 18 and 19 April.
Tax evasion costs the EU €1 trillion a year, he said, cash that could be spent on education, training, healthcare and investment in infrastructure. He said the EU was preparing to introduce the automatic exchange of information among tax authorities and a clampdown on tax havens and corporate tax avoidance. He said he was aware that tax avoiders took advantage of loopholes in tax schemes around the world and it was essential, therefore, to have a global approach to improve tax governance everywhere. To this end, the EU wants to make the most of work under way at the OECD and the G20, describing the latter as a very effective forum for coordinating a global response to the financial and economic crisis. He said work must focus on accountancy and automatic exchange of information worldwide, taking note of the specificities and legal niceties in force in various countries. He said the EU would strongly support work in common to establish new multilateral standards at the OECD.
The OECD is currently calling for measures against tax havens and the use of trust funds and the like to hide the identity of holders of offshore accounts. Setting up an international register of trust funds could help here and might be discussed at the G20 Summit. (FG/transl.fl)