Reuters has reported:
The European Union's tax commissioner on Tuesday called on the bloc's governments to be ambitious when they decide on a common blacklist of tax havens next week and said European funding to countries on the list should be frozen.
As noted here recently, the EU tax haven black list is due to be announced next week. The Tax Justice Network thinks 41 states should be listed, and an additional six EU member states, which are Cyprus, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands and the United Kingdom. None of those places will surprise anyone and the EU has appeared to be thorough, having screened 92 jurisdictions worldwide against the threefold criteria of tax transparency, use of harmful tax practices and cooperation on fiscal matters.
But it looks as if the EU is going to fail the real test. It seems certain that no EU country will end up on the blacklist. And those places who are not compliant but have committed to change their tax rules are likely to be included in a separate, “grey list”, as several EU officials call it, which might not be made public. According to Reuters:
A Commission spokeswoman said on Tuesday that all EU states “fully comply” with the criteria set to establish the tax havens' blacklist.
But added:
Some EU states still applied “harmful tax practices which lead to aggressive tax planning”, and cited cases in Britain, Malta and the Netherlands.
That, however, does not look to be enough to ensure blacklisting. And that means this list has no credibility from the outset.
When will we learn that beating abuse requires naming and shaming those undertaking it? That, thankfully, is happening elsewhere now. Why not in tax? It's overdue and the EU will make a fool of itself if it does not deliver.
Alex Cobham has written a damning piece on this for the EU Observer, here.
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‘Why not in tax?’
Because as noted elsewhere, not paying tax is now normalised. Its as simple as that. I don’t agree with it. But there it is. And tax affects everyone.
We know why the rich do it.
Everyone else does it because of poor wages, pensions, higher levels of debt, prices and being over leveraged. Avoiding tax takes the strain off income. Tax competes against other areas of expenditure.
Again, I’m not justifying it.
When you recently said 89% of the public was against companies avoiding tax, my first thought was ‘And I wonder how many of the 89% have avoided paying tax themselves?’.
The tax evading/avoidance (what I would call a non-payment) culture is a huge problem in our society.
It sounds somewhat as Noam Chomsky describes the Nuremberg war crimes trials.
A war crime was defined as anything the allies had not themselves done. It didn’t leave a lot.
If the EU is not going to wash its own dirty linen, and be seen to be washing it, it will damage its international standing aswell as shooting itself in the foot in economic terms.
It is to be expected that a good number of the Eurocrats benefit from current arrangements and won’t relish upsetting them, so some serious fudging will surprise no one.
Not to mention the cries of ‘hypocrisy’ which will emanate from our own dear Brexiteers who similarly will not wish to see their own boat rocked and will delight at the opportunity to paint The City snowy white.
What a cheerful way to start a Thursday. 🙁
What do you expect from an organisation head by Jean Claude Juncker?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/14/jean-claude-juncker-luxembourg-tax-deals-controversy
Why, post Brexit referendum, does everyone on the left assume that the EU is some sort of progressive nirvana, when it’s clearly not?
No one on the left ever thought it was
But anyone with any sense realises that it can be improved
And cooperation is vastly better than the Brexit alternative
“The EU” is not , of course, a single entity like the USA. It is a way of 28 countries trying to co-operate in a number of fields. It has to move with broad agreement and if a number of countries don’t want to agree, then we get the present situation. I am quite sure there are a number of frustrated people in the national governments, Commission and especially the Parliament who would like to be different.
It is frustrating as it undermines the credibility of the Union but, perhaps, it also shows what could be achieved as opposed to nations trying to act by themselves. Can we hope the public naming of the ones who are on the list will increase pressure of the back sliders to fall in line?
oh the irony…
The EU, AI, Amazon, Google, Facebook, all the major banks, PWC , etc, etc. It’s all a race to the bottom . So you just have to try and work out where you think you might be positioned in this race and how, if at all, you might survive it. Gaming the tax system is not in any way separate from this freefall it is integral to it.