They didn't ask for his opinion, but he gave them it anyway. The Commissioner for Taxation, Pierre Moscovici, had some harsh words for Luxembourg and Belgium over the reluctance they have expressed towards the proposal to impose transparency measures on tax intermediaries.
Quoted by their national media, the Luxembourg finance minister, Pierre Gramegna, and his Belgian counterpart, Johan Van Overtveldt, reportedly expressed a few concerns. Firstly, the tax burden on their respective tax authorities, as exchanges of information between member states have been brought in for tax rulings, country-by-country reporting, information on beneficial owners of shell companies, etc. Secondly, they pointed out that it goes further than the OECD's BEPS project to tackle the aggressive tax optimisation of multinationals. “None of the ministers asked for the floor after my presentation of the proposal”, Moscovici explained (our translation throughout).
He also expressed surprise at the substance of these misgivings, “as we want to help the member states to see that the gaps in their tax systems are being exploited by intermediaries to steel revenue from them and allow them to close these gaps”, he said. “You will point out to me that it is an administrative burden on the smaller countries, but this argument does not hold water, as both countries are extremely well administrated”. In the UK, introducing similar measures has brought in €12 billion in ten years. “How can a state rationally make a choice to deprive itself of this sort of money, particularly when budgets are under pressure (…)? I am curious to know what these comments made behind closed doors sound like when they are repeated in front of a camera”, he concluded.
He also touched upon the freezing, until at least December, of the financial transactions tax dossier, after France called to wait and see what the consequences of Brexit will be.
“It will probably only take one meeting” to conclude, he said, adding that “as it's the summer, there are some drinks that are best on ice, but sometimes it's also good to have hot items and the FTT is one of them”, he concluded. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)