Brussels, 25/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 25 March, the European Banking Federation (EBF) warned of the dangers surrounding the revised savings tax directive as adopted on Monday by the member states, which extends the scope of application of automatic exchange of bank information (AEI) under the 2003 directive (2003/48/EC).
The EBF says: “The current EU plans will lead to disruption and unnecessary costs for banks because they are not compatible with the multilateral regime adopted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) between countries”. Roger Kaiser, the EBF's adviser on tax issues, told to this newsletter that, since the review of the directive in question dates back to 2008, it cannot be used to align EU rules with the OECD standard. The EBF fears that the two standards will stand side-by-side, a concern expressed by Luxembourg and Austria in talks at the European summit last week. In the summit's conclusions document, the heads of state call on the EU Council of Ministers to ensure that adoption of the revised directive on administrative cooperation later this year ensures that EU rules are totally in line with the OECD's international standard (see EUROPE 11044). This does not convince the EBF, which expressed fears on 17 January in a letter to the G5 European finance ministers, the G20 and EU Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta.
In a response sent by the British chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, after consultation with his French, Italian, German and Spanish counterparts, Osborne said that the new standard will have to be introduced in close collaboration with the financial sector and the details of how the standard are to be applied will be decided in consultation with the financial sector, paying particular respect to operational constraints.
The EBF says that the European ministers' main concern was to stick to their political agenda, because Europe's heads of states had called for agreement on the revised directive in March 2014. The Commission says that banks will not face any unnecessary charges because it feels that a single coherent and consistent model for AEI is required. The Commission is therefore awaiting the final draft of the OECD rules so it can change the EU directive on administrative cooperation where necessary to avoid EU rules duplicating the OECD standard. Every three years, there is to be a report on the functioning of the savings tax directive, so in theory that means that one will be published later this year. (EL)