On Thursday 4 February, the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee (ECON) adopted by a large majority (49 votes in favour, 4 against and 6 abstentions) the draft report for opinion (see EUROPE 12629/6) drawn up by Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany) on the revision of the directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation (see EUROPE 12528/3).
MEPs fully support the objective of an automatic exchange of information between Member States' tax authorities on income earned by sellers on digital platforms such as Uber and Airbnb.
In their view, certain information exchanged should be made available to other authorities of the recipient Member States in order to prosecute certain infringements, without prejudice to the rules on tax secrecy and data protection applicable in the Member State where the taxable vendor is resident.
The final text further proposes to include a definition of excluded relevant activities and platform operators excluded from reporting.
It also advocates effective and harmonised sanctions against platforms that do not fulfil their obligations, such as charging additional indirect costs, exclusion from public procurement and, in extreme and repeated cases, revocation of their operating licence.
Furthermore, MEPs believe that a review clause should be inserted so that, after 2 years, the European Commission can assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the reporting obligations and, if necessary, make legislative proposals to improve it.
The EU Council has already adopted its position on the text, in December 2020 (see EUROPE 12613/1). (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)