The European Commission presented, on 17 June, its action plan against aggressive tax planning, which
Europolitics
unveiled
on 15 June (PDF dated 16 June). Pierre Moscovici, commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, talked to
Europolitics
about the EU executive's ambitions.
What principle underpins your action plan?
Our overarching goal is to make corporate taxation fairer and more efficient in the EU. To do this, however, we need to change the current system, which is outdated and unfit for the modern…
Code of conductYou propose to give fresh impetus to the code of conduct that the 28 are supposed to respect. What is the problem and how can it be solved?
The Code of Conduct on Business Taxation was agreed by the member states in 1997 as a non-binding commitment to stop harmful tax competition. It sets out criteria to decide whether a tax regime is harmful or not. The Code of Conduct Group – made up of the member states – uses these criteria to assess whether certain national tax measures go against the principle of fair tax competition. The problem is that the Code of Conduct and the Code Group have not evolved in the way that the challenges to fair taxation have. The criteria are inadequate to evaluate some of the modern types of tax incentives, and the Code Group needs a stronger mandate to be able to react decisively to these new challenges. This was apparent, for example, when the Code Group was unable to decide whether three member states' patent boxes were harmful or not in 2013. The Commission will propose to reform the Code of Conduct Group to strengthen it as an instrument against harmful tax competition. I want to ensure that this group can properly tackle complex new challenges to fair taxation, safeguard tax transparency and monitor member states more rigorously. I would also been keen to see the Code Group do more work in screening non-EU countries, to identify any external risks to member states' tax revenues.
