A delegation from the Parliament of the Czech Republic met, on Monday 14 November, with MEPs from the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs (FISC) and representatives of the European Commission. They tried to allay the fears of Czech MEPs about the risk of administrative overload due to future European tax legislation.
Maria Elena Scoppio and Benjamin Angel, Directors of the European Commission’s Taxation Services, began by outlining the proposals being prepared and soon to be adopted. They discussed the revision of the tobacco directive, VAT in the digital age, the ‘Unshell’ directive on shell companies (see EUROPE 13039/23) and the ‘BEFIT’ proposal on company taxation (see EUROPE 13043/23).
Regarding the latter proposal, Vojtěch Munzar, Vice-Chair of the Czech Parliament’s Committee on Budgets from the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), expressed his concern that the initiative might not be adopted. He is concerned that the BEFIT proposal will duplicate the directive implementing the OECD agreement on minimum taxation of companies (pillar II).
“Getting unanimity is challenging”, Mr Angel acknowledged. But the situation has changed, he said, because direct taxation is now “a common interest” for the Member States. “We should avoid a situation where Member States focus only on this”, he added.
Mr Munzar also sounded out MEPs on the possibility of enhanced cooperation between Member States to implement the OECD agreement in the EU, in order to circumvent the Hungarian veto in the EU Council on the proposed specific directive (see EUROPE 12977/4). In his view, this solution is less effective than national implementation. Mr Angel recalled that the two solutions are not incompatible.
Aurore Lalucq (S&D, French), the European Parliament rapporteur on this text, confirmed the Parliament’s wish that the Hungarian veto be lifted: “All our hopes lie in this Czech Presidency” of the EU Council, she confirmed with a smile. However, she recalled that the Parliament is asking the EU Council not to give in to the “unacceptable blackmail” of Hungary, which is blocking the proposed directive in exchange for an agreement on its national recovery plan (see EUROPE 12988/6).
Czech MP Michael Kohajda, member of the Christian Democratic Union, took an interest in the ‘Unshell’ directive. “Tools already exist. Shouldn't we rather focus on improving the existing rules?”, he asked, wanting to “avoid overburdening honest businesses”, especially SMEs.
Mr Angel assured that the proposed directive took this into account.
In a second step, the parliamentarians discussed the effectiveness of uniform tax harmonisation and the taxation of energy products and electricity. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)