Brussels, 01/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The existence of the special committee on tax rulings (TAXE committee) justifies “the risks I took”, Antoine Deltour, former auditor with PwC and the whistleblower behind the LuxLeaks scandal, said on Monday 1 June, at a hearing before this committee of the European Parliament. However, he expressed his regrets that a proper committee of investigation has not been set in place.
“This committee of investigation would have been able to demand documents”, Deltour explained, noting in passing that “many invitations” sent by the MEPs had been turned down, and that the member states were able to decide “not to send you any documents”. The MEPs' invitations to these public hearings on 1 June were declined by Google, Fiat, Amazon, HSBC, Coca-Cola and McDonald's, the Greens/EFA group has revealed.
The president of this committee, Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France) said that the multinationals choosing not to appear before the committee “are pleading guilty”. “On issues of European competence, such as the cohesion policy, I can set up a committee of investigation (…), on taxation, which comes entirely under national competence, I cannot force anybody to come, but I can invite them and ask for invitations”, he said. Luxembourg's Marius Kohl, until recently in charge of the tax rulings service, did not turn up on Monday 1 June either. Lamassoure said that his invitation would be renewed for the meeting of 23 June, but added that it was not possible at the moment to contact him.
Additionally, the EU states had until 31 May to fill in a questionnaire submitted to them by this committee, but only nine of them had replied by the deadline, Lamassoure regretted. Given the workload, he has already announced that he has asked for the special committee's mandate to be extended until the end of October.
Fabio De Masi (GUE/NGL, Germany) said that there was no political will to create this committee of investigation. “The political influence we will have will depend on who comes” to talk to us, added Molly Scott Cato (Greens/EFA, UK), who said that big businesses treated the EP with “disdain”.
Like Tove Maria Ryding of the NGO Eurodad, Deltour called for a European legal framework to protect whistleblowers. Deltour risks a five-year prison sentence and a fine of one million euros. Maria Ryding said that it was unacceptable that somebody could be sent to prison for having told the truth. She also took the opportunity to call for public country-by-country reporting.
When asked about the 'transparency package' presented by the Commission on 18 March, Maria Ryding said that she felt it was unhelpful. “The public isn't entitled to see anything it doesn't already”, she said, referring to the automatic exchange of information on the tax rulings, which provides for transparency between tax administrations. “Some people take the view that the reporting is highly sensitive”, she explained, arguing that information such as tax paid is not confidential.
However, she acknowledged that not all tax information should be requested. “However, when we get down to basic numbers on what multinationals are doing, I haven't heard a single rational argument to justify this remaining secret”, she stressed. Fabio De Masi explained that the Dutch parliament, which the TAXE committee has met, came out in favour of public access to this information.
Mario Monti, the former European Commissioner for Competition, expressed his “entire hope” that the President of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, would act with determination. He said that the package presented in March was not “too light”. Acknowledging that tax competition favoured mobile bases to the detriment of fixed bases, he said that it might not be necessary to bring in a minimum tax rate for businesses.
Maria Ryding also criticised the lack of transparency of the 'Corporate Taxation Code of Conduct' group and said that it was disconnected from reality when it said that it had removed all harmful tax practices in Europe. (Elodie Lamer)