On Wednesday 14 November in Strasbourg, the co-rapporteurs Luděk Niedermayer (EPP, Czech Republic) and Jeppe Kofod (S&D, Denmark) presented their draft report containing initial recommendations within the framework of the mandate given to the European Parliament's special committee 'TAX3' on financial crime, tax evasion and tax avoidance.
The draft report calls for an "urgent" reform of obsolete international and national tax rules, they explained. It contains a series of recommendations on the fight against tax evasion and avoidance, aggressive tax planning, the fight against money laundering, as well as on the protection of whistleblowers and journalists.
In the special committee’s view: cooperation is needed between national authorities.
"From the CumEx-files to Danske Bank, we have seen a pattern of slow, lacking and outright dysfunctional cooperation. This is in clear violation with Treaty provisions and must be addressed urgently by the Commission and Member States", Jeppe Kofod told the press.
To remedy this, the text proposes, for example, that Member States designate single contact points in each tax authority, in order to be able to warn the other Member States' authorities more quickly in the event of serious cross-border financial crime.
In the fight against money laundering, the Parliament’s co-rapporteurs question the appropriateness of legislating mainly through directives, rather than regulations, and invite the European Commission to carry out an assessment of the adequacy of the legislative instruments used.
As for golden visas, these programmes to grant a residence permit or even the nationality of a Member State in exchange for substantial investment in the host country (see EUROPE 12118), the two MEPs call for the gradual abolition of these programmes.
This is only a first draft of our recommendations, stressed the co-rapporteurs.
The TAX3 committee will continue its investigations and update the report. They will soon travel to the Isle of Man or even to Estonia and Denmark in the Danske Bank case (see EUROPE 12102).
The draft report will be presented to the TAX 3 committee on 27 November. Members will then have until 17 December to table their amendments, before a vote in committee is scheduled for 27 February 2019. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)