Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-02-Speech-4-118-000"
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"en.20120202.10.4-118-000"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the European Parliament for putting tax policy high on its political agenda as demonstrated by this first annual tax report and, particularly to thank Mr Schmidt, not only for the constructive tone of the report, but for setting the standard high for others to follow. On behalf of the Commission, I would also like to welcome the broad support for the Commission’s initiatives and the valuable suggestions made for our future work. Let me address specific points in more detail.
First, in the current economic climate, clearly the European Union needs a more pro-growth, pro-jobs tax policy. In the 2012 Annual Growth Survey: Launching the European Semester, the Commission outlined ways towards growth-friendly tax reform and fiscal consolidation in Member States. In the short term, shifting taxation away from labour towards consumption and polluting activities, in addition to cutting unjustified tax expenditure, could contribute to much-needed growth. Furthermore, it will be important to improve the tax environment for businesses. In this respect, I would like to highlight our commitment to an EU VAT system with a single set of simple and clear rules providing businesses with more accessible and better information, and creating a new VAT forum: these are some of the actions we have planned in our recent communication for a new VAT regime.
I also very much welcome the support for our proposal on the common consolidated corporate tax base. This proposal will contribute to achieving many goals you seek, such as reducing administrative costs and red tape for companies, especially for small businesses operating across borders. It will help to remove discrimination and double taxation. In this respect, and as a complement to the CCCTB, the Commission is committed to further examining the potential for a binding dispute resolution mechanism covering double taxation, and many of you have spoken about it.
But the Commission is not only aiming to make life easier for businesses and provide advantages to them. In the current economic climate, tackling the causes for Member States’ tax base erosion is of particular importance.
For this reason, I am very glad to see very strong support to our efforts to fight tax fraud and tax evasion, but also to tackle double non-taxation of large companies that artificially shift profits to minimise the effective tax rate. Very soon, the Commission intends to launch a public consultation on double non-taxation in order to establish the full scale of the problem, and to get information about existing schemes and possible solutions.
By the end of this year, the Commission will present a comprehensive initiative to further address issues highlighted in the report, such as tax havens, aggressive tax planning and double non-taxation. I also very much welcome the support for our communication on removing cross-border tax obstacles for EU citizens and for our efforts to strengthen cooperation and coordination between Member States in order to prevent such obstacles.
As you can see, the Commission’s thinking reflected in our ongoing and planned initiatives is very much in line with the issues raised in the report and by Members today. I am really delighted to see that Parliament agrees on the importance of an EU-coordinated tax policy as an essential element in our strategy to move out of this crisis towards a better future for our citizens."@en1
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