Come on member states… It’s time to act on tax evasion.
Paul Tang’s been travelling between EU capitals with a simple message: We need to act together to tackle tax evasion.
#TaxTour: Brussels
After two months travelling around the member states, having many discussions about how we can make the CCCTB and tax transparency work, it was finally my turn to host them, on home turf in the European Parliament.
On October 10, around 30 national MPs from more than 10 Member States came all the way to Brussels to join me for our Inter-parliamentary Conference. The result was an invigorating conversation with suggestions and concerns raised by participants from across the EU.
It is right that we should listen to them all. Though we received broad and positive support for the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base project, we paid attention to the worries of smaller countries and island nations. Representatives of these reasons shared some sharper with us criticisms, but I’m sure we will benefit from taking them on board and trying to find a workable solution together. Tax competition, on a fair and level playing field, and without compromising social security, can be a good thing. However, the stakes are higher for some than they are for others in our reforms to Europe’s tax system, and so we need to get it right first time. It is for this reason that we received invitations from Ireland and Romania, and so we are excited to bring the #TaxTour to Dublin and Bucharest later this year.
But back to our inter-parliamentary conference in Brussels. For my part, I called for better cooperation between member states and the Commission. It is vital that we work together on this level, so that we can have good insight into the consequences of the CCCTB on tax revenue in member states, and so that we can have a thorough and reliable impact assessment to work with. This will be so important as a basis for implementing the CCCTB, as we can only find a common solution when we know who stands to lose out from our proposals, and how much.
#TaxTour: Berlin
With the election of a new Bundestag, coalition negotiations are in full swing to form a new German government. What could be more perfect timing for a visit on the #TaxTour?
We arrived in Berlin on October 20, to speak with the most important stakeholders and some newly elected members of the Bundestag. It was a great visit and we plan to return as soon as the new finance minister is in office, to discuss the importance of the CCCTB. Do you want to know more? Watch the video below of the Berlin visit of the Tang Tax Tour.
#TaxTour: What next for the CCCTB at home?
A little less than one thousand amendments have been tabled by colleagues on my draft report with Alain Lamassoure on how to make the Council’s directive for a CCCTB reality. It has been time consuming to pour through every one, but nonetheless, the tendency is clear. We have a consensus for a broad, transparent and fair tax system based on our CCCTB, and the various concerns that have been expressed will be hashed out in months to come, between both the member states and the political groups. Negotiations will begin soon, and we hope to see a vote brought forward in early 2018.
