Bolkestein verheugd over akkoord Europese aanpak belastingfraude (en)
The European Commission has welcomed the Council's adoption of a Directive that is designed to speed up the flow of information between the tax authorities of Member States. The Directive which relates to direct taxation (income tax, company tax and capital gains tax), together with Insurance Premium Tax, enables Member States to co-ordinate their investigative action against cross-border tax fraud and to carry out more procedures on behalf of each other. The Directive is based on a Commission proposal of July 2003 (see IP/03/1226) and updates and rectifies weaknesses in the existing Directive on Mutual Assistance, 77/799/EEC. Modern technology and increased cross-border activity have made it more important than ever for information exchange and co-operation between tax administrations to be improved. A Council report on tax fraud of June 2000 noted that the existing EU directives and regulations were inadequate for the combat of fraud, which in the direct tax area involves, in particular, problems of under-invoicing and over-invoicing (transfer pricing). ;This Directive complements other recently adopted EU legislation in the field of information exchange the agreement on savings income (see IP/03/787) and the Regulation on strengthening administrative co-operation in the VAT area (see MEMO/03/36).
"I am pleased that the Council has adopted this Directive to improve cooperation between national tax administrations in the fight against fraud" commented Commissioner for Taxation, Frits Bolkestein. "Tax dodgers and cheats must not be allowed to get a free ride on the backs of honest taxpayers".
Faster and more effective co-operation
The Directive is designed to speed up the operation of mutual assistance between Member States and make it more effective. It contains four elements:
it introduces the possibility for Member States to conduct simultaneous control checks of the locally-based activities of taxpayers operating in several countries of the EU and to share the information obtained with each other
it ensures that, when a State has to initiate enquiries in order to obtain information needed by another country's tax agency, it will treat the enquiry as if it were acting on its own behalf (because the procedures are generally less complicated in domestic cases and the information should thus be provided more quickly)
it will ensure that a Member State that has been requested to supply information will, if requested, carry out certain administrative procedures on behalf of another Member State such as serving the taxpayer with an amended assessment
it clarifies certain ambiguities in the existing Directive 77/799/EEC in order to eliminate some current differences of interpretation of the Directive by Member States.
The Council agreed the text of the Directive in October 2003, but because it decided to change the legal base on which the Commission had made the proposal for a Directive, the European Parliament had to be consulted on this change before the Council could adopt the proposal. The Council has changed the legal base from Article 95 of the EC Treaty (which provides for adoption of a Directive by qualified majority voting by Member States in the EU's Council of Ministers and co-decision with the European Parliament) to Articles 93 and 94 (under which a Directive has to be agreed unanimously by the Council following the providing of an opinion by the Parliament). The Commission and the Parliament consider Article 95 as the only proper legal base for mutual assistance arrangements which are not designed to harmonise tax provisions but to provide for the exchange of information between Member States and facilitate the proper functioning of the Internal Market.
The text of the Directive will soon be available on the Europa internet site: