Irish Times: EU common tax base still on agenda

19 March 2013

The European Commission's push for common rules which would see companies pay tax where they make sales rather than where they are based is not a thing of the past.

Progress on the issue is currently in the hands of the Irish EU presidency, which “must regard this as a somewhat poisoned chalice”, said Mr Kermode, director of the commission’s directorate-general for taxation. The creation of a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) would not create equal corporate tax rates throughout the EU but would allow firms to comply with an EU-wide system for computing their liabilities.

Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands oppose a CCCTB, while doubts about it exist elsewhere, but Mr Kermode said the European Council had demanded “concrete actions – no more theory, please, concrete actions” on taxation. “We have no corporate tax harmonisation, per se: this proposal is not a proposal to harmonise corporate taxes, but what it has done is to open a very detailed discussion at che Council about the elements of a tax base."

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