Brussels, 12/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - In plenary on 12 December, the European Parliament voted by 495 votes to 115, with 11 abstentions, for a resolution tabled by Socialists Mojca Kleva-Kecus (Slovenia) and Anni Podimata (Greece) calling on governments to make a quantifiable and binding commitment to cut tax losses resulting from tax fraud and corporate tax planning by a half by 2020. It is thought that the lost income due to tax fraud currently stands at a trillion euros a year for the EU28.
In order for effective measures to be taken and to meet EP demands, the European Commission says that research is needed to examine how much tax revenue is lost and to draw up standard EU indicators by first drawing up national indicators and then harmonising them across Europe.
In the resolution, the MEPs welcome the commitment and measures already taken to recover lost tax income at national and EU levels (scrapping unwarranted tax exemptions and closing loopholes, standardising VAT returns, revising the parent-subsidiary directive and more besides), along with commitments by the G20 and OECD on the automatic exchange of bank information and moves to tackle tax havens. The resolution's initiators regret the lack of tangible measures at EU level and the failure of the Ecofin Council to introduce the revised savings tax directive this year. The resolution calls for annual progress reports from the Council for the Council of Ministers and European Parliament on the pursuit of targets to tackle tax fraud. (FG/transl.fl)