Brussels, 15/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - At the Ecofin Council on Friday 15 November, Luxembourg and Austria maintained their opposition to adoption at this stage of the revised EU savings tax directive despite agreement of the other 26 delegations on the draft changes and the fact that the European summit wants the revised directive to be adopted by the end of the year.
As was expected, the finance ministers of the two countries said that the European summit of May 2013 had called for the adoption of the draft directive by the Council of Ministers by the end of 2013 as long as substantial progress is made in the talks with five non-EU countries, Switzerland, Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino, which are due to introduce measures similar to those of the new directive (taxing all savings income and all savings products that generate interest or similar income and also the automatic exchange of information - AEI).
Luxembourg's finance minister Luc Frieden pointed out that Switzerland (Ed: which along with Liechtenstein has signed the OECD convention on administrative cooperation in tax affairs) was in the process of deciding on its negotiating mandate and it was therefore necessary to wait for the outcome of the talks with the non-EU countries to be known and only formally decide on the revised savings tax directive when negotiations have been completed. Luxembourg expects the five countries to make strict pledges and issue a detailed timeline for implementation of the measures. Frieden said that Luxembourg would endorse the OECD convention and the G20 recommendations for greater tax transparency and wanted to see AEI apply across the globe. He said that his country would still meet its pledge to introduce AEI on 1 January 2015.
These objections were backed by Austria, which sees agreement with the five non-EU nations and their acceptance of AEI as a sine qua non. Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter raised the problem of knowing who exactly is the end beneficiary of income from funds invested abroad and says she is in favour of a detailed register of information about end beneficiaries being set up, thus connecting the savings tax directive with the anti-money-laundering directive (see separate article).
The Lithuanian Presidency noted that no progress had been made and recommended that the draft directive be examined by a later Ecofin Council meeting in the hope that it will be adopted before the end of the year. (FG/transl.fl)