Brussels, 17/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 18 February, the College of EU Commissioners will hold their first policy debate on its package of draft fiscal transparency legislation. The first part of the discussion will be about future draft legislation on the automatic exchange of tax information about tax rulings and draft legislation to rescind the savings tax directive. The second part of the discussion is about greater transparency in taxation and whether public disclosure similar to banking/financial services should be adopted.
Several sources expect the College to have a rather general debate on Tuesday, as is suggested by the questions they will be discussing (how to boost transparency, how the exchange of information should be structured, what is needed to make company taxation more effective).
For the draft legislation on the automatic exchange of information about tax rulings, which should take the form of amendments to the directive on administrative cooperation, a broad definition is expected to be chosen, but this would not cover rulings for individuals. It is possible that the draft rules will be unveiled after the 18 March meeting of the College of Commissioners.
For the second part of the discussions about the degree of transparency to be required of companies, a diplomat pointed out three issues: putting pressure on companies that are already reluctant to invest, data protection and the danger of the approach conflicting with that of the OECD and G20 on disclosure of information only to tax offices.
At the European Commission, people point out that the OECD restricts the country-by-country reporting to particular information, but that neither the Commission nor the member states had committed themselves to this in talks. The Commission wants to take an ambitious approach.
A parliamentary source says that Taxation Commissioner Pierre Moscovici favours the amendments tabled by the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament to expand country-by-country reporting to all sectors, but this is oppose by Financial Services Commissioner Lord Hill. Nobody would comment on this on Tuesday in either Moscovici's circles or Lord Hill's. (Elodie Lamer)