05 February 2013

ECON Committee: Draft report on the Annual Tax Report - How to free the EU potential for economic growth

Rapporteur: Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz

Explanatory Statement

The recent debt crisis has raised several new problems in the European Union, which require the proper adjustment of tax policies in the short, medium, and long term. Some of the countries have already made these adjustments, while some countries are still ahead of them.

It is inevitable to emphasise that the taxation policy still remains a competence of national sovereignty and the different tax systems of the Member States have therefore to be respected, whereas the barriers of the internal market and the uncertainties and misunderstandings originating from the legal gaps should be suppressed as soon as possible.

As a possible solution to the above-mentioned problems, the report suggests creating a so-called intelligent and coordinated ‘tax-snake’ system, which instead of harmonising the tax systems of all Member States would only coordinate them in a way that would take account of the existing tax cuts and tax increases within the national systems.

The report emphasises that in order to restore the credibility of budgetary policy, and to reduce the sovereign debt it is inevitable to ensure fiscal discipline and to introduce structural reforms. At the same time, priority has to be given to the growth-orientated fiscal measures and to the promotion of taxes levied more on consumption than on labour, since they are better designed to stimulate economic growth and employment on the long term.

Since the questions of double taxation and tax evasion still represent considerable problems and cause significant budget losses to the European Union, the last few paragraphs - in accordance with the Action Plan of the Commission published at the end of last year - draw the attention to the necessity of finding an urgent solution to these problems.

Draft report

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