Algirdas Semeta

International Tax Review is part of Legal Benchmarking Limited, 1-2 Paris Garden, London, SE1 8ND

Copyright © Legal Benchmarking Limited and its affiliated companies 2025

Accessibility | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Modern Slavery Statement

Algirdas Semeta

European Commissioner for Taxation, Customs Union, Audit and Anti-Fraud

Algirdas Semeta

As the man at the heart of EU tax reform, Commissioner Semeta maintains his place among our Top 10 most influential people in tax.

He has slipped from second to fourth place as the scandals surrounding companies exposed for corporate tax avoidance have tended to set the agenda of tax policy this year, but as an ambitious reformer, he has made his mark on the shape of the European tax landscape.

Among Semeta’s most important achievements of the past year are leading the EU fight against tax evasion and avoidance, facilitating the first ever enhanced cooperation initiative in EU taxation with the financial transaction tax (FTT), and progress in VAT reform including an agreement on a quick reaction mechanism (QRM) and a proposal for standard declaration.

“Over the past year, we have made more progress in the campaign to fight tax evasion than in the previous decade before that,” Semeta says. “At EU level, the action plan I presented at the end of 2012 served as the perfect springboard to launch this surge forward. It allowed EU leaders a focal point for their discussions at the May summit and a basis on which to commit to concrete measures against tax evasion and avoidance.”

The increased momentum allowed agreement to be reached on the QRM to fight VAT fraud and on mandates to negotiate stronger tax agreements with Switzerland and four other close neighbours.

“EU leaders have also called for the stronger Savings Directive to be agreed before the end of the year, after years of impasse on this important proposal,” Semeta says. “In addition, the Commission brought forward a new proposal in June which will enable the EU to have the widest application of automatic information exchange anywhere in the world. We also, through the new economic governance structure, issued country specific recommendations to a number of member states to improve their administrative efficiency at home and step up their efforts to address non-compliance.”

Semeta expects the Commission’s most important achievements next year will include a stronger tax agreement with Switzerland, shaping the EU contribution to BEPS and OECD global standard of AEI, and a likely agreement on the FTT by 11 member states.

Further reading

EXCLUSIVE: Commissioner Semeta announces his tax reform priorities for 2014

European Commission tightens corporate tax rules

EU member states give green light for FTT


The Global Tax 50 2013

« Previous

Starbucks, Amazon & Google

View the complete list

Next »

Tax journalists

more across site & shared bottom lb ros

More from across our site

Reckitt Benckiser is to divest its Essential Home business, which includes more than 70 brands, to private equity firm Advent International
In the first of a new series of weekly opinion pieces, ITR Editor Tom Baker reflects on the OECD’s attempts to sanitise the US’s brazen pillar two negotiations
The threat of 50% tariffs on Brazilian goods coincides with new Brazilian legal powers to adopt retaliatory economic measures, local experts tell ITR
The country’s chancellor appears to have backtracked from previous pillar two scepticism; in other news, Donald Trump threatened Russia with 100% tariffs
In its latest G20 update, the OECD also revealed tense discussions with the US where the ‘significant threat’ of Section 899 was highlighted
The tax agency has increased compliance yield from wealthy individuals but cannot identify how much tax is paid by UK billionaires, the committee also claimed
Saffery cautioned that documentation requirements in new government proposals must be limited if medium-sized companies are not exempted from TP
The global minimum tax deal is not viable without US participation, Friedrich Merz has argued
Section 899 of the ‘one big beautiful’ bill would have spelled disaster for many international investors into the US, but following its shelving, attention turns to the fate of the OECD’s pillars
DLA Piper’s co-head of tax for the US and Latin America tells ITR about her fervent belief in equal access to the law, loving yoga, and paternal inspirations
Gift this article