Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-08-Speech-1-083"
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"en.20100208.14.1-083"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the theme of good tax governance has always been of great importance, it has become even more relevant and significant following the major economic and financial crisis of two years ago. European and international summits – the G20 – have discussed and continue to discuss it, particularly when they are concerned with fighting tax evasion and tax havens.
All this is important. It is a sign of commitment and willpower, but we should not delude ourselves into thinking that an announcement is all it is going to take. We need an effective and ongoing policy. There are still many problems to be dealt with. It really is still much too easy to buy or set up a front company in order to avoid taxation. Just look around on the Internet: there are thousands of websites offering companies for sale, even in European Union countries. Often, all you have to do is send an email and attach a photocopy of a scanned passport in order to set up a company. We must put a stop to the practice of creating fictitious legal entities to evade tax.
The report I am presenting is based on the European Commission communication of 28 April 2009 on Promoting Good Governance in Tax Matters. The report moves towards putting forward firm proposals, and calls for a strong commitment from the European Commission and Council, so that these proposals can be implemented. The fight against tax havens, tax evasion and illicit capital flight must be considered priorities of the European Union.
Hence the principle of good governance, based on transparency, exchange of information, cross-border cooperation, and fair tax competition. The point is that we need increasing tax cooperation and collaboration in the European Union.
The general objective that we must set ourselves is for automatic information exchange on a global and multilateral scale, but this must, obviously, start within the European Union. As Mrs Alvarez has already said, we must completely abolish bank secrecy in European Union countries and hasten to put an end to the temporary derogation that allows the application of a withholding tax, which is often evaded or underestimated, instead of an exchange of information.
I do not wish to dwell on the tangible proposals that the report contains. I will, however, stress that we still particularly need the following things: to extend the scope of the 2003 Savings Directive, to fight VAT fraud, to create an EU public register listing the names of individuals and undertakings having set up companies or accounts in tax havens and to give new impetus to tax harmonisation projects, beginning with the common corporate consolidated tax base.
The European Union must also send out only one message internationally, and fight for the improvement of OECD standards to achieve the automatic sharing of information, instead of sharing on request.
Mr Kovács, having listened to the other reports as well, we need strong commitment by the Commission and we now also need these priorities to be emphasised to the new Commission at the time of handover. As the European Parliament, we are entitled to call on the Council and the Commission to account for their work.
I thank my fellow Members, and especially the shadow rapporteurs, for the contribution they have made to this work, which I hope will be adopted by Parliament."@en1
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