Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-13-Speech-3-182"
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"en.20001213.7.3-182"2
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"Mr President, it is truly touching to hear the purportedly angelic arguments in favour of promoting e-commerce, but here the problem we have is the real competitive disadvantage of our European companies, and the problem of correcting that situation by establishing certain rules, so that all services supplied to private individuals by electronic means in the European Union are subject to VAT.
Therefore, in order to ensure that operators from outside the Union are subject to the same tax obligations as domestic operators when providing services to consumers, they must be registered for VAT purposes in a Member State of their choice, with the VAT rate of the State they choose being the one that applies to their operations.
We debated this issue in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and some committee members spoke in favour of tax exemption for this type of service, arguing that this would eliminate the competitive disadvantage. I believe that this argument is mistaken. It is an inappropriate argument and it is not in accordance with European legislation, and furthermore it would do comparative harm to services provided by other means. Furthermore, it is not true that a moratorium on the taxation of electronic services has been introduced in the United States.
We therefore support the Commission’s proposal in its entirety and the excellent work of Mr García-Margallo y Marfil. I personally tabled an amendment on the harmonisation of VAT rates, which would correct the effects of unfair competition resulting from third country operators’ power to choose when it comes to registering, since there is a very broad range of VAT rates available to them – between 15 and 25% – while domestic operators have no choice.
However, I believe that a better solution has been found to compensate the Member States for the loss of VAT income resulting from these differences in rates, a solution which I consider to be satisfactory.
By way of an objection, the Group that I represent in this House believes that we should correct the fact that, while newspapers normally enjoy reduced VAT rates, this reduction is not applicable to electronic newspapers."@en1
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