Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-13-Speech-3-176"
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"en.20001213.7.3-176"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal of the European Commission intended to make the purchasing of digital products which can be downloaded directly from the Internet by consumers resident in the Union from extra-Community firms subject to VAT is a heavy blow for the development of e-commerce. The goal which the Commission would like to achieve is to eliminate the disadvantage suffered by European e-businesses whose sales to European consumers are already subject to VAT. Nevertheless, the solution proposed will prove to be technically unmanageable and a barrier to the development of on-line transactions within the Union, at the very time when everybody is hoping for its expansion.
The point has been made from several quarters, even within the Council, which has decided to give itself more time, that the proposal is weak, that it leaves gaps and that it is such as to induce numerous objections. I will quote but a few: it appears that it would be impossible to apply the measures adopted without active cooperation from the other countries, particularly the United States, which is currently not at all disposed to cooperate. What would happen if an Eastern European country failed to register in Europe for VAT purposes? Would the site be blocked
or would we prosecute the users who continued to download files from offshore sites? When all is said and done, any benefit would go to the companies who, with relative ease and certain impunity, refused to comply with the registration obligation.
How can an e-business be certain that its clients have declared their true place of residence? If the European criteria of the registration obligation were to be taken up internationally for e-commerce taxation, the businesses complying with the obligation, including European businesses, would be forced to register in dozens and dozens of countries, incurring increasingly unreasonable expenses, especially where smaller firms are concerned. I could say more, for example on the decision to tax the sale of all electronic equipment etc. Moreover, this enthusiasm
for negligible amounts of taxable income and tax revenue is incomprehensible.
The Commission should rather endeavour to ensure that a common, definitive definition of the e-business taxation criteria reaches the OSCE or the WTO. For these reasons we will vote against the report."@en1
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