Working together for fairer taxation
Sep 02, 2016
On September 2, 2016, the European Commission (the Commission) released a speech by Margrethe Vestager, European Commissioner for Competition, where she discusses the need for a dialogue on fair taxation.
In her speech, she states that "all of us benefit when businesses pay their fair share of tax" and that "tax avoidance, in the form of base erosion and profit shifting, costs up to 10% of the world’s corporate income tax revenues. That's up to 240 billion US dollar a year that governments need to find from other taxpayers, or by cutting public services."
She also discusses how in January 2016, the Commission proposed an Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive, which has been approved by the EU's member countries. Once fully implemented, the Commission will make a big step forward in closing the loopholes which companies use to avoid tax.
Other topics covered in her speech include transparency, state aid and taxation and transfer pricing and profit allocation methods.
Review the speech on the Commission's website.
