Brussels, 05/05/2015 (Agence Europe) - EU Competition Commissioner, Margrethe Vestager (of Denmark), is looking at the idea of the current investigations into tax rulings for multinationals in Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg being used to draw up future EU guidelines to explain in detail how things should be done in order to comply with EU state aid rules. She hopes that greater transparency on tax rulings will lead to less time being wasted on them in future. This was the message she gave the special European Parliament TAXE committee on Tuesday 5 May (in the morning).
The European Commission has provided the TAXE committee with a list of 65 tax rulings granted since 1991 by 15 countries (Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, Finland, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Malta and Hungary). Only ten of the 65 were notified to the Commission. When tax rulings are not notified, the Commission has the power to open an investigation following a complaint or when tipped off in other ways that something might not be as it should. Vestager said that her predecessor, Joaquin Almunia, had opened investigations on tax decisions made by Ireland, for example, for the Apple multinational, following an investigation of Apple by the US senate. Vestager did the same in February when she opened an investigation into the Belgian system of early tax decisions about excess profits after reading about it in the media (see EUROPE 11245), and this is simply one of many such cases. Commissioner Vestager therefore feels that this is exactly why the debate about new EU corporate tax transparency measures is so important. She said that since she asked all member states to supply a list of the tax rulings they have granted, only three countries (Estonia, the Czech Republic and Poland) have not yet done so. She said she has asked her department to launch the procedure for ensuring that the three countries provide the requested information.
The European Commission wants to become the hub of an automatic exchange of information system between member states about tax rulings, although some countries are not happy about the idea of the Commission being at the heart of such a system. The Commission is prepared to fight for this tooth and nail. It has been criticised for only clarifying a measure already foreseen in the directive on administrative cooperation for 'spontaneous' exchange of information about tax rulings in certain conditions. “The information was not exchanged. It was possible, yes, but it didn't happen,” explained the commissioner.
Vestager admitted that the Commission would not be able to meet the deadline it set itself of the end of the second quarter of this year for issuing conclusions on its investigations into tax rulings (Apple in Ireland, Fiat Finance and Trade and Amazon in Luxembourg and Starbucks in the Netherlands). She refused to rush into things and would not comment on these cases. This is partly in order to ensure decent cases because any negative decisions will be appealed against at the European Court of Justice by the Netherlands and Ireland, and also partly in order to gain in-depth understanding of the issue. Vestager said that by building on knowledge gained in the current investigations, the Commission would be able to draw up guidelines in the future, along the lines of the state aid and environment guidelines, “in great detail to explain how things can be done to be absolutely by the book” to ensure that tax rulings comply with the state aid rules.
Vestager also called for a consolidated common tax basis for company tax (CCCTB), saying this was “the minimum”, in addition to a large degree of transparency to clamp down on tax evasion. (Elodie Lamer)