Brussels, 19/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - Taxand, a tax strategy corporate advisory consultancy, states that the committee of enquiry the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament hopes to set up following the LuxLeaks scandal finally seems to be looking at the problem from the right angle.
“It should come as no surprise that in the drive for investment, jobs, and growth, governments across the world have courted multinationals with an array of incentives. This is clearly not an issue that affects the handful of countries mentioned in the media, but extends much wider - as the investigation looks set to reveal”, Taxand states in a press release. It also notes that the problems observed in the international tax system cannot be fixed by just one or two EU countries, any more than they can be fixed by multinationals.
“While there are still questions surrounding the implementation of BEPS [the OECD's plan to tackle tax optimisation: Ed](…), it is doing more to address the problems of our antiquated tax structure than anything else we have seen from the EU, which appears to be picking fights at both company and country level without due consideration”, Taxand adds. On 5 February, the conference of the presidents of the groups at the EP must decide whether it will put forward the proposal for a committee of enquiry to the plenary session of February.
For their part, the European Commissioners for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici, and for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, also recognise that the question of tax optimisation is not limited to a handful of EU countries: “it is a European problem which needs a European solution”, they write in The Guardian. (EL)