Brussels, 18/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - Before the summer, the Commission will strike twice to end aggressive tax planning by multinational companies. Initiatives are expected next month and then in June, theoretically ahead of the European Council.
On 18 March, the Commission will present amendments to the directive on administrative cooperation aiming to make the exchange of information on tax rulings automatic. At the same time, it plans to look into the next stages to ensure the public disclosure of tax information, explained Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission, after an initial guideline debate at the College on Wednesday 18 February. “We already have some instruments in place requiring some types of companies like banks to publish certain information” on the tax they pay, Dombrovskis said. “We will consider whether (these provisions) should be extended to other types of cross-border companies”, he added. This, he went on, comes with the pledge that any new obligation must be subject to careful assessment of all the options and appropriate consultation of the stakeholders.
There is one point on which there is agreement within the College, and that is that the issue has to be dealt with properly, but this does not make the question any less complex. The disclosure requirements upon banks were the result of amendments tabled by the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament to the CRDIV package. The negotiations on these amendments concluded late in the night. The Commission therefore seems to want to take the time, here, to take stock in terms of costs and advantages. As regards the amendments tabled to this effect by the Greens/EFA group to the directive on shareholders' rights, a Commission source went no further than to state that there is no institutional agreement.
In June, the Commission will present an action plan for a fairer and more effective system of taxation. It will include ideas to move forward the initiative on the common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB), which was presented in 2011 but has been at deadlock since then, and other suggestions to block practices likely to allow tax optimisation and the transfer of profits. On the CCCTB, “we are ready (…) to discuss the member states' sensitivities on this issue”, said Dombrovskis, who added that the Commission was not considering enhanced cooperation at this point in time. The question of the presentation of a proposal to this effect appears not to have been clarified at this stage and a Commission source stressed that the member states' resistance to the CCCTB is not a resistance in terms of substance, but is rather fears of the potential secondary effects. It is therefore now up to the Commission to find the arguments to lay these concerns to rest.
On the other aspects related to corporate taxation, the guiding principle will be that profit must be taxed where it is generated. (Elodie Lamer)