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The Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion (PANA) approved its final report by 47 votes to 2 with 6 abstentions on Wednesday, after an 18-month probe into breaches of EU law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and evasion. [...]
Lack of political will among EU countries
MEPs expressed regret that “several EU member states featured in the Panama Papers.” They pointed to the “lack of political will among some member states to advance on reforms and enforcement.” This, they suggested, had allowed fraud and tax evasion to continue.
The committee was sharply critical of the secrecy surrounding the work of the Council’s Code of Conduct Group and highlighted how moves to counter tax evasion are often “blocked by individual member states.” It wants the Commission to use its authority to change the unanimity requirement on tax matters.
Common definitions of tax havens
The committee backed a call for a common international definition of what constitutes an Offshore Financial Centre (OFC), tax haven, secrecy haven, noncooperative tax jurisdiction and high-risk country. It gave overwhelming backing to a call for the Council to establish by the end of this year a list of EU member states with “where Non-cooperative Tax Jurisdictions exist.”
The committee members also supported a proposal that any entity with an offshore structure should have to justify to authorities their need for such an account.
The committee stressed the need for “regularly updated, standardised, interconnected and publicly accessible beneficial ownership (BO) registers.” It also called for proposals to close loopholes which allow for aggressive tax planning as well as more dissuasive sanctions at both EU and national level against banks and intermediaries “that are knowingly, wilfully and systematically involved in illegal tax or money laundering schemes.” [...]