María José Garde, Chairwoman of the Code of Conduct Group on business taxation, gave a progress report on the Group’s work to MEPs of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Tax Matters on Thursday 30 November. She outlined the progress made both within and outside the EU.
The Code of Conduct Group is tasked with identifying preferential tax regimes that could undermine the competitiveness of the internal market. Since the Group was set up, 480 preferential regimes from EU Member States and their dependent territories have been assessed. One hundred and thirty other schemes were deemed to be harmful and were therefore abolished.
As for non-EU jurisdictions, the Group lists those that are non-cooperative for tax purposes, as well as those that have made commitments on good tax governance. This list is updated twice a year, most recently in October (see EUROPE 13273/15).
Very recently, the Group also agreed to extend the geographical scope of the EU listing exercise to include three additional jurisdictions: Brunei, Cuba and New Zealand, explained Mrs Garde. The screening and monitoring process involves in-depth and often sensitive consultations with the courts in their country, she added.
Since 2017, over 130 preferential tax regimes have been amended or abolished, present in 95 jurisdictions and, from 2024, in 98 jurisdictions under scrutiny. 27 countries joined the OECD multilateral convention on mutual administrative assistance in tax matters. The Code of Conduct Group is currently focusing its discussions on the design of the future criteria for disclosing information on beneficial owners, announced the Chairwoman.
With regard to the Directive on Pillar II of the OECD agreement on minimum taxation of businesses (see EUROPE 13291/21), Mrs Garde gave assurances that the Group would monitor its implementation. The Member States are currently working on this.
Asked by Pedro Marques MEP (S&D, Portuguese) about cooperation on capital gains taxation, she pointed out that the Group focused on business taxation and not on personal income. But in the case of business taxation, of course, this is something we take into account in our work, she concluded. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)