Brussels, 14/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 14 May at the end of the Ecofin Council, Laszlo Kovacs, the European Commissioner for taxation, declared that the Ecofin Council has confirmed that it wants to speed up the analysis of the implementation and in the long term, amend European rules on savings tax revenues. European finance ministers adopted short conclusions calling on the Commission to present by 30 September at the latest, its report on implementation of Directive 2003/48/EC and to subsequently propose legislative amendments to rectify shortcomings in European legislation (EUROPE 9659). According to Kovacs, such an intuitive will come next month, following presentation of the report. The Commission explains that the light shed on the facility for getting round the rules in force, in countries like Liechtenstein, a third country having signed a similar agreement with the EU on the savings tax directive, certainly gives a positive boost to the work, because this time member states are calling for the rules to be amended.
Mr Kovács spoke of the stance taken by certain delegations, especially Germany, concerning the provisions of the directive that have to be modified: - extension of the scope of the directive notably to legal entities and to innovative financial products, as well as the introduction into the European legislation of OECD principles on exchanging information on taxation. Germany took the lead among member states in favour of rapidly revising the directive. Denmark, Spain, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom supported this position. Austria and Luxembourg pointed out that they above all wished to look at the European Commission's report before beginning discussions on any changes that might be made to the European legislation. With Belgium, these two member states apply a provisional withholding mechanism of amounts on their territory, allowing them to avoid having to divulge the identity of non-resident natural persons. Belgium seems more in favour of revision of the directive with a view to extending its scope to legal persons and to insurance products. It does not, however, seem inclined towards including pension funds and corporate dividends. (M.B.)