EU: EU leaders reach conclusions on EU tax policy

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

EU: EU leaders reach conclusions on EU tax policy

van-der-made.jpg

Bob van der Made

EU leaders reached the following conclusions in respect of EU tax policy at their meeting on December 19 – 20 2013 in Brussels:

  • Recalling its conclusions of May 2013, the European Council calls for further progress at the global and EU levels in the fight against tax fraud and evasion, aggressive tax planning, BEPS and money laundering.

  • The European Council welcomes work undertaken in the OECD and other international fora to respond to the challenge of taxation and ensure fairness and effectiveness of tax systems, in particular the development of a global standard for automatic exchange of information, so as to ensure a level playing-field.

  • Building on the momentum towards more transparency in tax matters, the European Council calls on the Council to reach unanimous political agreement on the Directive on administrative cooperation in early 2014.

  • It calls for speeding up the negotiations with European third countries and asks the Commission to present a progress report to its March meeting. In the light of this, the revised Directive on the taxation of savings income will be adopted by March 2014.

  • The European Council also takes note of the Council progress report to EU leaders on tax issues, welcomes the establishment by the Commission of an EU high level expert group on taxation of the digital economy, and invites the Commission to take into account the (parallel) work at the OECD, and report back to the Council as soon as possible.

  • Progress should also be made quickly towards agreement on amending the EU Parent-Subsidiary Directive.

  • The European Council calls for further progress on the disclosure of non-financial information by large groups.

As to the Parent-Subsidiary Directive: outgoing EU Tax Commissioner Algirdas Semeta is eager to reach unanimous political agreement in the ECOFIN Council by May or June 2014. However, for this to happen it is understood that the Commission will need to drop its proposed introduction of a common general anti-avoidance rule, as there seems no unanimous support among member states for this. It is understood that the other main strand of the Commission's proposal to neutralise the distorting effects of mismatches resulting from differences in the tax treatment of hybrid loans between member states, should be successful and might be adopted by ECOFIN before the summer or in the second half of 2014. This largely depends on whether the European Parliament can issue its Opinion before the European elections.

As to the proposed Directive on disclosure of non-financial information by large groups, a number of member states who were against the proposed inclusion in this Directive of an obligation for large companies to also disclose country-by-country profits, taxes and subsidies received where they operate, were successful in keeping any reference to tax reporting out of the European Council's conclusions. Two days before the European Council meeting, a majority of the members of the EU Parliament (MEPs) in the Legal Affairs Committee dealing with this issue from the Parliament's side, agreed with the opposing member states that when reviewing this Directive in 2018, the Commission should consider introducing such an obligation, despite the fact that some MEPs wanted to propose including such a requirement immediately. It remains to be seen what comes out of the trilogue compromise negotiations between the Commission, Council and Parliament on country-by-country reporting, in the light of the ongoing international work on this topic at the OECD, as commissioned by the G8/G20.

Bob van der Made (bob.van.der.made@nl.pwc.com)

PwC

Tel: +31 88 792 3696

Website: www.pwc.com

more across site & shared bottom lb ros

More from across our site

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
Tax expert Craig Hillier agrees with the comparison of pillar two to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut
The amount is reported to be up 57% from the £5.6bn that the UK tax agency believes was underpaid in the previous year
Gift this article