Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-01-Speech-1-232"
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"en.20080901.24.1-232"2
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"Thank you, Mr President. I am very pleased that a Community strategy is emerging for this issue, albeit slowly, perhaps too slowly. I agree that the fight against fiscal fraud must be incorporated into the individual national obligations of the Member States on the one hand, but it must also be incorporated into the Community’s Lisbon programme.
My observations are as follows: first, I do not agree with the phrasing of the Parliament’s report according to which the strengthening of tax competition would distort the internal market unnecessarily and undermine the social model. This reflects the obsession with stipulating minimum levels of taxation for every area of taxation that exists, which would in fact cause unfairness in addition to the impact of inflation, since it would hit those who have otherwise put their houses in order and are able to lower taxes. Concerning indirect taxation that falls under the Community’s jurisdiction too, the policy of referring exclusively to minimum values without having us regulate the maximum is unacceptable. I would like it to be noted that the hotbed of abuse occurring with excise duty is due to the increase in minimum levels, since it stimulates the spread of the black-market economy and the manufacture of home-made produce, which contradict all the Community’s policies. Next, in the area of VAT, I am pleased with the policy of taking slow steps and with the experimental idea of the reverse charge, but resolute steps forward are also needed here. In my opinion, given the level of technology we have today, this could easily be done for cross-border transactions within an internal market, and the supplier’s VAT for the destination country could easily be collected and transferred to the destination country. In order to do this, of course, there must be improved willingness for cooperation between the tax authorities of the Member States, which is still lacking, and we can take a deep breath and achieve this now that the euro has been introduced and the Payments Directive has come into being. Finally, I feel that it is important to take action concerning the operations of primarily offshore companies outside the Union, since the tax base is often channelled there before taxation and is then returned from there to companies in the Union through messy transactions in order to evade tax, and this is not in the interests of selecting a favourable tax location. Thank you."@en1
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