Brussels, 01/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has supplied the missing page of the Krecké Report to the MEP who requested it, Germany's Fabio De Masi (GUE/NGL).
The missing page is about Luxembourg and its tax rulings. It had been withdrawn from the public version of the report. During his hearing at the European Parliament's special tax committee on tax rulings (TAXE) on 17 September, Juncker said he didn't remember the page and didn't have it at his disposal.
“The page published by Juncker is not revolutionary. It makes clear that the Luxembourg system of attracting companies' profits via a generous rulings practice has been in place since at least the 90s. The government, with Juncker at the top, has been warned about the consequences, and did nothing to prevent the excesses from going on,” stated De Masi on Thursday 1 October.
The missing page of the 1997 Krecké Report says that ruling in advance on the legitimate or normal nature of an operation would mean that the tax office enters fiscal competition with other European countries in which the 'tax ruling' practice is well-established and in a Europe where fiscal competition reigns, this reinforces the negative effect of delocalisation. The page goes on to say that the Netherlands is the country that piloted the practice of tax rulings.
Krecké suggested to the competent minister, Juncker at the time, that the tax rulings should be monitored a little more closely. The page in question ends by stating that when the political power is clearly aware of these practices, it can then intervene if the informal rules applied no longer comply with the policy carried out by the Government.
In his letter to De Masi, Juncker apologies but says he did not lie at the TAXE hearing. He points out that the Commission is currently studying the extent to which the new transparency requirements can be imposed on companies, such as the publication of information such as country-by-country tax reporting. The results of a public consultation on the matter are mixed, with companies calling for the EU to not go any further than the OECD plans for reporting to tax offices (see EUROPE 11398).
“The Commission needs to finally get serious about tax transparency. Instead of hiding behind yet another impact assessment, we need full public country-by-country reporting for all multinationals as soon as possible. It is working well for banks and will do no harm to other companies either. Juncker, however, still refuses to commit to this personally,” said Fabio De Masi.
In his letter, the president of the Commission explains that Taxation Commissioner Pierre Moscovici is currently examining with the US how to ensure that the TAXE committee gets access to the documents it is demanding while respecting the confidentiality rules by which the European Commission is bound.
Juncker's letter does not seem to have won over De Masi, who is again calling for a full EP enquiry committee. The previous attempt to set up such a committee at the start of the year ended in failure. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)