Brussels, 12/06/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU says that at the present stage, it would be appropriate that Council, while discussing the state of play with regard to this legislative proposal for the automatic exchange of information on tax rulings, the EU ministers should also exchange views on a number of selected technical issues.
“Such a debate could serve as further guidance to the incoming Presidency in drafting the compromise text that could eventually be tabled for a political agreement of the Council in the Autumn of 2015,” explains the Presidency in a public document prepared ahead of the Coreper meeting of Friday 12 June. The matters to be discussed are the scope of application of the exchange of information, including the question of whether they should be retroactive, the date of the first exchange of information and the European Commission's role.
The scope of application, the definition reached for tax rulings and the prior agreement on the price of transfers are deemed too broad. Some countries, such as Luxembourg, want not only information about cross-border tax rulings to be shared. The Commission doesn't support this demand, saying that it would create an additional administrative burden and exchange of information should focus on big multinational companies.
On the starting date of the exchange of new rulings: for many member states, “at least twelve months would be required to transpose the new rules into national legislation.” Therefore the Presidency deemed it appropriate to bind the starting date of mandatory exchange of information with the transposition deadline (12 months from entry into force of the new amending Directive). The Commission's proposal says that countries should be required to apply the directive's measures on 1 January 2016.
The measures would be retroactive for probably five years in the past, rather than ten as suggested by the Commission.
Opinion is divided on the Commission's role. The initial proposal put it at the heart of the exchange system. The Presidency writes that “in the Commission proposal, there is reference to the confidentiality rules, but less clarity with regard to whether or not the Commission would be able to use the information to which it can access for any purposes other than monitoring and evaluation of the effective application of the new rules. It is clearly stated, however, that the information provided to the Commission under the new Directive would not discharge member states from their obligations to notify any state aid to the Commission.” (Elodie Lamer)