Brussels, 18/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 16 December, the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, wrote to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, to ask him to make the fight against tax optimisation a major element of the European Council which started on Thursday 18 December. The Twenty-Eight are expected to call upon the Ecofin Council to work on this issue and report back to them in June of next year.
Rajoy explained that coordinated action to fight aggressive tax planning is vital to ensure the correct functioning of the internal market. Spain, he writes, supports the proposals to promote exchanges of information, including tax rulings on cross-border transactions of relevance, and those granted for the establishment of companies.
Another priority area, added Rajoy, is effective taxation as a whole. The interplay between bilateral conventions, directives and Community liberties, particularly the freedom of movement of capital, also extended to third countries, can lead to a lack of taxation in favour of jurisdictions outside the EU, he says. Consequently, he explained, this is a problem which can only be tackled effectively from an EU perspective.
It is therefore necessary to tackle areas such as hybrid instruments, the international transparency rules and the rules on the 'exit tax'. “Consequently, the proposed anti-BEPS directive represents an opportunity to resolve (these questions) in an integrated and coordinated way”, Rajoy concludes.
Without forgetting the fight against taxation, Rajoy adds that a definition of criteria should be added to the proposal, taking account not just of transparency as a key element, but also of the real level of taxation. Lastly, he states that it would be interesting to introduce a European tax identification level, which would make it easier to identify European tax-payers carrying out cross-border activities. He refers to the need for a new code of conduct for the member states. (EL)