It has been several months coming, but on Thursday 10 November, the European Commission announced that it is officially to discuss the role of tax advisers, who in some cases help their clients to transfer their profits abroad in order to dodge tax, by means of highly complex structures.
In so doing, the Commission is hoping to gain more transparency from tax advisory firms, but also to plan effective deterrent measures against those who encourage tax optimisation.
"Complex financial schemes and opaque corporate structures do not happen by accident: some intermediaries have developed these into an art-form", said Commissioner for Taxation Pierre Moscovici.
The Commission will look at possible ways of setting in place a compulsary information communication system for tax advisers. Under rules of this kind, intermediaries would be required to provide information at an early stage on mechanisms that could be deemed a form of aggressive or abusive tax planning and the objectives of the non-binding OECD guidelines (action 12 of the BEPS project) for the communication of information on aggressive tax planning strategies would be taken into account. The Commission's procedure is in response to a request from the European Parliament and the finance ministers (see EUROPE 11553).
It will also consider introducing a code of conduct for the tax consultancy industry.
The accountancy experts, represented by the ACCA and Chas Roy-Chowdhury, take the view that in the current climate, "some form of EU action is required. However, the EU should be careful not to jeopardise constructive relations with the OECD by introducing incompatible requirements which reduce the overall impetus towards useful reform of the international tax system".
The Commission invites the opinions of the stakeholders up to 16 February of next year. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)