Brussels, 04/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 4 September, the European Commission was due to put a working document to the Member States' experts on possibilities of extending measures under the directive on the taxation of physical persons, which entered into first on 1 July 2005, to new third States (EUROPE 8981). This initial meeting aimed to define priorities among the major financial centres with which the Commission says that it is prepared to explore the possibilities of negotiating a similar agreement. The directive 2003/48/EC (between Member States), which was brought into being to fight tax evasion on private savings, and the equivalent agreements relating to five third countries (Andorra, Lichtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland) and 10 dependent and associated territories of the United Kingdom (Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and five British territories in the Caribbean) and of the Netherlands (the Dutch Antilles and Aruba), provided that revenue is taxed in the form of an interest payment, depending on the rules of the Member State in which these persons have their residency for tax purposes, irrespective of where the savings are placed.
The risk of a flight of capital into more attractive markets further to the entry into force of these provisions has been taken into consideration from the very beginning, as Switzerland and Monaco had, for example, made their agreement to the directive conditional upon the launch of talks with other international financial centres. Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, Bahrein, Dubai, the Bahamas, Japan and Canada are some of the financial centres with which the Commission plans to extend these agreements, the spokesperson to the Commissioner in charge of taxation, Laszlo Kovacs, told the press on Monday. She added, however, that these exploratory negotiations are not possible with all of them, even though there is an "increasing feeling that we must cooperate internationally if we want to avoid tax evasion".