Taxation News – 6th Issue (April 2015)-Corporate Tax Avoidance
Greece
- Combating Corporate Tax Avoidance
On 18 March 2015, the European Commission presented a package of tax transparency measures which
includes a number of initiatives to advance the tax transparency agenda in the European Union.
Specifically:
Assessing possible new transparency requirements for multinationals
The Commission will examine the feasibility of new transparency requirements for companies, such as the
public disclosure of certain tax information by multinationals. The objectives, benefits and risks of any such
initiative need to be carefully considered. Therefore, the Commission will assess the impact of possible
additional transparency requirements to help inform a decision at a later stage.
Reviewing the Code of Conduct on Business Taxation
The Code of Conduct on Business Taxation is one of the EU’s main tools for ensuring fair corporate tax
competition. It sets out the criteria that determine whether a tax regime is harmful or not and it requires
Member States to abolish any harmful tax measures that go against the Code. Member States meet
regularly to assess their compliance with the Code. But over the past years, the Code has become less
effective in addressing harmful tax regimes as its criteria do not take into account more sophisticated
corporate tax avoidance schemes. The Commission will therefore work with Member States to review the
Code of Conduct as well as the mandate of the Code of Conduct Group in order to make it more effective
in ensuring fair and transparent tax competition within the EU
Quantifying the scale of tax evasion and avoidance
The Commission, along with Eurostat, will work with Member States to see how a reliable estimate of the
level of tax evasion and avoidance can be reached. There is growing evidence that evasion and avoidance
are pervasive and cause significant revenue losses. However, a precise quantification of the scale and
impact of these problems has not been determined up to now. Reliable statistics of the scale and impact of
these problems would help to better target policy measures against them.
Repealing the Savings Tax Directive
The Commission is proposing to repeal the Savings Tax Directive, as this text has since been overtaken by
more ambitious EU legislation, which requires the widest scope of automatic information exchange on
financial accounts, including savings related income. Repealing the Saving Tax Directive will create a
streamlined framework for the automatic exchange of financial information and will prevent any legal
uncertainty or extra administration for tax authorities and businesses.
- Tax Treatment of Distributed Dividends to Natural and Legal Persons Domestic or Foreign
Poland
- Obligatory Cash Registers for Lawyers, Doctors, Tax Advisers, Mechanics, Hairdressers
Romania
- Drafts New Fiscal Code and New Fiscal Procedure Code
Serbia
- Interest Rates’ Publication
- Tax Return’s Submission
Ukraine
- Transfer Pricing Amendments to the Tax Code of Ukraine
EU
- Do the Multinational Companies Pay the Attributable Tax?
- The European Commission Refers Greece to the European Court of Justice
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