Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-06-12-Speech-2-302"
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"en.20010612.14.2-302"2
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"Madam President, I have little to add to what Mrs Torres Marques has said. I would highlight that the Commission’s proposal seems to me to be a good one. My good friend Mrs Torres Marques has stressed this effectively. I believe that it fulfils four of the fundamental objectives relating to simplifying administrative obligations.
I will end by saying that Mrs Torres Marques’s report is a good one. The preliminary report was also a good one. And that report has been greatly improved since passing through committee thanks to the generosity of the rapporteur, who has accepted a good number of amendments. The procedure we are now undergoing is a consultation procedure, it is modest, but this committee – given the number of amendments it has presented – has worked very seriously on drafting this report. I hope the Commission will respond generously to the serious work of the European Parliament’s committee.
As she has said, the harmonisation of the requirements for information to appear on the invoice will mean that traders operating within the single market will be subject to a single legislation, while until now they have had to know, comply with and apply fifteen different legislations.
Secondly – and the rapporteur has also highlighted this – this simplification will also mean significant savings for companies. It is true – I agree with the rapporteur and the Commission in this respect – that the issuing of a traditional invoice is three times as expensive as the issuing of an electronic invoice. This innovation is therefore welcome.
Thirdly, I also agree that this proposal will help to develop, strengthen and promote the electronic provision of services, which is one of the great objectives which the European Union established at Lisbon and which will be discussed tomorrow in Gothenburg.
Fourthly, I believe that this proposal, while achieving these objectives from the point of view of the simplification of formal obligations, savings in the financial costs to companies and the strengthening of electronic services, in no way jeopardises the administrative control necessary for the application of the tax.
I will not talk about some of the amendments which Mrs Torres Marques has mentioned, such as the electronic digital signature, because the author of the amendment is Mrs Kauppi, who will explain it much better than me.
However, I would like to say that the amendment which we are presenting in relation to the sequence has not in my view been properly understood by the rapporteur. The Commission proposed that the invoice should have a single number. What we are saying is that it should not necessarily be sequential, and there could be different sequences or collections by client or by country, in order to favour identification from the point of view of the company and, probably, also from the point of view of the administration.
I also share the rapporteur’s regret, which this Parliament makes abundantly clear every time valued added tax is discussed: the Commission lacks audacity when it comes to progressing towards a definitive system for value added tax, which would simplify it enormously and which, at a time of so many problems for European integration, would provide clear and firm backing and a clear message that we are prepared to turn value added tax into what its founder, Maurice Lauré, called the first European tax.
This is a modest step, since it only involves administrative obligations, formal obligations, that is, certain secondary aspects of the tax, but it seems to me a step in the right direction. My Group will support it."@en1
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