On Wednesday 24 February, the members of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters (FISC) discussed the draft own-initiative report on digital taxation (see EUROPE 12646/20) drawn up by Martin Hlaváček (Renew Europe, Czech Republic) and Andreas Schwab (EPP, Germany).
“We should send the right signal at the right time”, said Hlaváček at the meeting. The timing is essential for the MEPs, who have their sights set on the March meeting of heads of state or government to discuss digital taxation.
The vote on the report in the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) has therefore been scheduled for 23 March and should be followed by a discussion in plenary in April so that the European Parliament can have its say, before the debate speeds up in the second quarter, with a breakthrough in the negotiations expected in July at the OECD (see EUROPE 12579/21).
MEPs fully support an international agreement at the OECD as Plan A. “At the same time, we don’t want to end up where we ended up before, either in limbo or on hold. We should send a clear message that we are not prepared to repeat the same scenario”, warned Hlaváček, stressing the need for the EU to have a Plan B in case the OECD negotiations fail again.
The message will be all the stronger if the report is supported unanimously, which is the objective, said Andreas Schwab. Everything will, of course, play out in the wording of the text, but, overall, the co-rapporteurs’ ambitions seem to be broadly shared by all the political groups.
“Europe must not sit around and wait for an international agreement. It can and must act now at its own level and, even if there is an international agreement soon, which I really hope there will be, we already know that it will not be ambitious enough. Therefore, the European Union must prepare now to complete its rules and raise the level of ambition without delay. Otherwise, we will continue the deadly race to the lowest tax”, said Damien Carême (Greens/EFA, France).
For her part, Francesca Donato (Identity and Democracy, Italy) also considered this to be a “historical moment” for fairness in taxation. Nevertheless, the ID Group wants a broader reform of all multinationals’ rules, not just digital companies. “I think we would do half of the job if we just stopped in consideration of digital enterprises”, she said.
While he also shares the co-rapporteurs’ ambitions, Martin Schirdewan (The Left, Germany) believes that the report should be more precise and clearly describe what future tax measures should look like.
The political groups tabled their amendments to the draft report for Thursday 25 February. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)