50 Amendments of Doru-Claudian FRUNZULICĂ related to 2018/2121(INI)
Amendment 89 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Highlights that close to 40 % of MNEs’ profits are shifted to tax havens globally each year25 ; _________________with some European Union countries appearing to be the prime losers of profit shifting, because 35% of shifted profits come from EU countries, followed by developing countries (30%)1a; deplores that Ireland is the number one shifting destination, followed by Singapore, the Netherlands, Caribbean tax havens and Switzerland1b; deplores furthermore that about 80% of the profits shifted within the EU are shifted to the EU tax havens, primarily Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands1c; [3] _________________ 1a Tørsløv, Wier and Zucman ‘The missing profits of nations’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 24701, 2018. 1b Tørsløv, Wier and Zucman ‘The missing profits of nations’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 24701, 2018. 1c Tørsløv, Wier and Zucman ‘Themissing profits of nations’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 24701, 2018. 25 Tørsløv, Wier and Zucman ‘The missing profits of nations’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 24701, 2018.
Amendment 170 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16 a. Stresses that between 1985 and 2018, the global average statutory corporate tax rate has fallen from 49% to 24%1a ; notes that nominal corporate tax rates have decreased by 46% since 2000 at EU level –from an average of 32% in 2000 to 21,9% in 20181b; is concerned about a growing race to the bottom on nominal corporate tax rates at both international and EU levels; regrets that international tax reform such as G20/OECD led BEPS project did not touch upon this unfair tax competition; calls for a second set of international tax reforms aiming at tackling tax competition among countries and ensuring a fair allocation of taxing rights; underlines it is necessary to give a greater role to the UN Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters in the next reform of international tax rules; _________________ 1a Tørsløv, Wier and Zucman ‘Themissing profits of nations’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 24701, 2018. 1b Taxation trend in the EU, Table 3:Top statutory corporate income tax rates (including surcharges), 1995- 2018,European Commission 2018
Amendment 214 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. Welcomes the provisions on Controlled Foreign Corporation (CFC) included in ATAD I to ensure that profits made by related companies parked in low or no-tax countries are effectively taxed; acknowledges that they prevent the absence or diversity of national CFC rules within the Union from distorting the functioning of the internal market beyond situations of wholly artificial arrangements as called for repeatedly by Parliament; deplores the coexistence of two approaches to implement CFC rules in ATAD I and calls on Member States to implement only the simpler and most efficient CFC rules as in ATAD I Article 7(2)(a); asks the European Commission to make a legislative proposal reinforcing CFC rules, including a criteria on an actual corporate tax paid on profits lower than 18%;
Amendment 218 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Welcomes the general anti-abuse rule for the purposes of calculating corporate tax liability included in ATAD I, allowing Member States to ignore arrangements that are not genuine and having regard to all relevant facts and circumstances aimed at obtaining a tax advantage; reiterates its repeated call for the adoption of a general and common anti- abuse rule, namely in existing legislation and in particular in the parent-subsidiary directive, the merger directive and the interest and royalties directive; calls on Member States to consider a general anti- abuse rule including a minimum effective tax rate of 18%;
Amendment 244 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Recognises that the new flow of information to tax authorities following the adoption of ATAD I and DAC4 creates the need for adequate resources to ensure the most efficient use of such information and to effectively reduce the current tax gap; calls on all Member States to evaluate if the tools of the authorities are sufficient and adequate to use this information; points out the importance of combining different sets of information in order to identify patterns which indicate suspicious activity and can thereby help to discover financial crimes, tax evasion or tax avoidance;
Amendment 271 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32 a (new)
Paragraph 32 a (new)
32 a. Calls on the Council, assisted by the European Commission, to define a comprehensive and exhaustive list of potential harmful tax practices within the EU, to be updated every year; demands that criteria aiming at identifying harmful tax practices include, notably, schemes allowing for a large deduction of corporate income tax without benefiting the real local economy;
Amendment 284 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33
Paragraph 33
33. Welcomes the re-launch of the CCCTB project in a two-step approach, with the Commission’s adoption of interconnected proposals on CCTB and CCCTB; calls on the Council to swiftly adopt them,stresses that once implemented fully, the CCCTB will make it possible to attribute income to where the value is created and will eliminate loopholes between national tax systems, in particular transfer pricing; calls on the Council to swiftly adopt and implement the two proposals side by side taking into consideration Parliament’s opinion that already includes the concept of virtual permanent establishment that would close the remaining loopholes allowing tax avoidance to take place and level the playing field in light of digitalisation;
Amendment 300 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Notes that the phenomenon of digitalisation has created a new situation in the market, whereby digital and digitalised companies are able to take advantage of local markets without having a physical, and therefore taxable, presence in that market, creating a non-level playing field and putting traditional companies at a disadvantage; notes that digital businesses models in the EU face a lower effective average tax burden than traditional business models31 ; deplores that digital businesses pay almost no taxes in some Member States despite their significant digital presence and large revenues in those Member States; reminds that, when it comes to the digitalisation of the whole economy, the location of the value creation should take into account the input from users as well as information collected on consumers' behaviour online; _________________ 31 As evidenced in the impact assessment of 21 March 2018 accompanying the digital tax package (SWD(2018)0081), according to which on average, digitalised businesses face an effective tax rate of only 9.5 %, compared to 23.2 % for traditional business models.
Amendment 339 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 b (new)
Paragraph 36 b (new)
36b. Calls on Member States to ensure that the ‘Digital Services Tax’ remains a temporary measure by including a ‘sunset clause’ to the proposal for a Council Directive on the common system of a digital services tax on revenues resulting from the provision of certain digital services and by speeding up the discussion on a Significant Digital Presence1a ; _________________ 1a Proposal for a Council Directive laying down rules relating to the corporate taxation of a significant digital presence COM(2018) 147 final
Amendment 407 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45 a (new)
Paragraph 45 a (new)
45a. Calls on the Commission and the Council to create a mandatory standardised public European Business Register in order to gain up-to-date and trustworthy information on companies and to achieve transparency via cross- border access to comparable and reliable information of companies in the EU;
Amendment 425 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 49 a (new)
Paragraph 49 a (new)
49a. Deplores the fact that companies can make agreements with governments to pay almost no tax in a given country despite conducting substantial activity; points in this light to a tax ruling between the Dutch tax revenue authority and Royal Dutch Shell plc that seems to be in violation of Dutch tax law on the sole ground that the head office would be located in the Netherlands after the unification of the two former parent companies, which results in an exemption from Dutch dividend withholding tax, while at the same time recent investigations seem to show that the company pays no profit tax in The Netherlands either; reiterates its call on the Commission to investigate this case of potential illegal state aid;
Amendment 444 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 52
Paragraph 52
52. Notes that there is no single definition of letterbox companieHighlights that companies create cross-border operations and corporate constructions including artificial arrangements in order to avoid or circumvent national tax law; stresses that company mobility should not lead to forum shopping; notes that there is no single definition of letterbox companies; reiterates its call for a clear definition; stresses that the requirement of genuine economic activity in the destination Member States can prevent the creation of a letterbox company through a cross- border operation, as proposed in the draft report for the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive (EU) 2017/1132 as regards cross-border conversions, mergers and divisions;
Amendment 519 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 65 a (new)
Paragraph 65 a (new)
65a. Welcomes that a VAT Mini One Stop Shop (MOSS) on telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services was introduced in 2015 as a voluntary system for registration, declaration and payment of VAT; welcomes the extension of the MOSS to other supplies of goods and services to final consumers as of 1 January 2021;
Amendment 555 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 75
Paragraph 75
75. Points, however, to the need for better cooperation between the administrative, judicial and law- enforcement authorities within the EU, as highlighted by experts during the hearing held on 28 June 2018 and in a study commissioned by the TAX3 Committee; calls on the EPPO, OLAF, Eurofisc, Europol and Eurojust to closely cooperate with a view to coordinating their efforts against VAT fraud and to identifying and adapting to new fraudulent practices;
Amendment 708 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 102
Paragraph 102
102. Calls on the Commission to table a legislative proposal to ensure the automatic exchange of information between the relevant authorities, including tax and customs authorities, on beneficial ownership and relevant transactions for taxation purposes taking place in free ports, customs warehouses or SEZs;
Amendment 747 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 110 a (new)
Paragraph 110 a (new)
110 a. Welcomes the Action Plan adopted by the Council on the 4th of December 2018, including several non-legislative measures to better tackle money laundering and terrorist financing in the EU; requests the Commission to regularly update the Parliament on the progress of the implementation of the Action Plan;
Amendment 748 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 110 b (new)
Paragraph 110 b (new)
110 b. Is concerned by the absence of concrete procedures to assess and review the probity of members of the governing council of the European Central Bank, in particular when they are formally accused of criminal activity; calls for mechanisms to monitor and review the conduct and propriety of the members of the governing council of the European Central Bank and to protect them in case of abuse of power by the authority that has the appointment power;
Amendment 759 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 112 a (new)
Paragraph 112 a (new)
112 a. Notes the positive results of the UK law establishing the Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) in tracking proceeds of criminal activities; highlights that a UWO is a court order that requires a person who is reasonably suspected of involvement in, or of being connected to a person involved in, serious crime to explain the nature and extent of their interest in particular property, and to explain how the property was obtained, where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the respondent’s known lawfully obtained income would be insufficient to allow the respondent to obtain the property; calls on the Commission to assess the feasibility of proposing a similar measure through EU legislation and report back to Parliament;
Amendment 762 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 112 b (new)
Paragraph 112 b (new)
112 b. Welcomes the decision in some Member States to ban the issuing of bearer shares and to convert the current ones into nominal securities; reiterates its call on the Commission to propose EU- wide legislation to the same effect;
Amendment 763 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 112 c (new)
Paragraph 112 c (new)
112 c. Stresses the urgent need to create a more efficient system for communication and information exchange among judicial authorities within the EU, replacing the traditional instruments of mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, which provide lengthy and burdensome procedures harming investigations of money laundering and other serious crimes; reiterates its call on the Commission to assess the need for legislative action in this field;
Amendment 764 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 112 d (new)
Paragraph 112 d (new)
112 d. Calls on the Commission to assess and report to Parliament about the role and particular risks presented by legal arrangements such as Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), Special Purpose Entities (SPEs) and Non Charitable Purpose Trusts (NCPTs) in money laundering, particularly in the UK, and Crown Dependencies and Overseas territories;
Amendment 806 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 121 a (new)
Paragraph 121 a (new)
121 a. Notes that the recent scandals affecting banks in Malta, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark reveal the failure of supervision by national anti-money laundering authorities; highlights, at the same time, that ESAs have limited abilities to take a more substantial role in the anti-money laundering field due to tight resources coupled with a lack of appropriate powers;
Amendment 825 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 125 a (new)
Paragraph 125 a (new)
125 a. Notes the concerns expressed by the EBA with regards to the implementation of the Directive 2013/36/EU on access to the activity of credit institutions and the prudential supervision of credit institutions and investment firms1a; welcomes the suggestions made by the EBA to tackle the deficiencies caused by the current Union legal framework; _________________ 1a https://www.eba.europa.eu/documents/101 80/2101654/Letter+to+Tiina+Astola+on+t he+request+to+investigate+a+possible+B UL+under+Article+17+of+Regulation+% 28EU%29%20No+10932010+- +24092018.pdf
Amendment 827 #
Motion for a resolution
Subheading 5.2
Subheading 5.2
Cooperation between financial intelligence units (FIUs) and law enforcement
Amendment 833 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 126 a (new)
Paragraph 126 a (new)
126 a. Highlights that the fight against money laundering and tax evasion also requires good cooperation between FIUs and customs authorities;
Amendment 858 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129 a (new)
Paragraph 129 a (new)
129 a. Notes the Commission’s assessment of the framework for FIUs’ cooperation with third countries and obstacles and opportunities to enhance cooperation between FIUs in the Union including the possibility of establishing an EU level coordination and support mechanism; recalls that according to the AMLD5 this assessment should be ready by 1 June 2019; asks the Commission to consider this opportunity to make a legislative proposal for a EU Financial Intelligence Unit, creating a hub for joint investigative work and coordination, with its own remit of autonomy and investigatory competences on cross border financial criminality, and an early warning mechanism;
Amendment 863 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 129 b (new)
Paragraph 129 b (new)
129 b. Calls on the Commission to draw up a report assessing the necessity of uniformisation or harmonisation of the organisational status conferred to FIUs in Member States, to ensure better cooperation and exchange of information, without interfering with their independence;
Amendment 864 #
129 c. Calls on the Commission to propose legislation for the creation of a European Financial Police within the framework of Europol, with its own autonomous investigatory competence, based on the European legal framework to tackle cross-border tax fraud, money laundering, financing of terrorism and predicate offences;
Amendment 870 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 131 a (new)
Paragraph 131 a (new)
131 a. Takes note of the repeated calls from obliged entities, namely financial institutions, for proper channels of enhanced dialogue, communication and exchange of information between private bodies and public authorities, on one hand, and among obliged entities themselves, on the other, to provide less fragmented information to FIUs; calls on the Commission to draw up guidelines in accordance with the AMLD5, for Member States to implement at national level in this regard, namely using the mechanisms provided in the General Data Protection Regulation for secure and lawful exchange of data;
Amendment 881 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 133 a (new)
Paragraph 133 a (new)
133 a. Calls on Member States to ensure that registers of beneficial owners contain verification mechanisms to ensure the accuracy of the data; calls on the Commission to make assessment of verification mechanisms and reliability of the data in its reviews;
Amendment 920 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 140 a (new)
Paragraph 140 a (new)
140 a. Urges the Commission to lead on creating a global framework regulating virtual currencies which takes into consideration the risks of these new technologies; recalls the dangers posed to consumers by Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s) and urges the Commission to enact a proposal for their regulation as financial operations; notes in particular that cryptocurrencies' opacity can be used to facilitate money laundering and tax evasion; calls on the Commission to draft legislative proposals to ban certain anonymity measures on specific cryptocurrencies, on a case-by-case basis;
Amendment 949 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 148
Paragraph 148
148. Recognises the effort made by some third countries to act decisively against BEPS; stresses, however, that such reforms should remain in line with existing WTO rules; considers the information gathered during the committee visit to Washington DC about the US tax reforms and their possible impact on international cooperation to be of particular importance; finds that some of the provisions of the US Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 would be incompatible with existing WTO rules according to some experts regrets certain provisions of the US tax reform seek, unilaterally and without any reciprocity, to revitalise transnational benefits attributable to US territory (presuming that these are generated, at least 50%, in US territory); welcomes the fact that the Commission is currently in the process of assessing the potential regulatory and commercial implications of, in particular, the BEAT, GILTI and FDII78 provisions of the new US tax reform; asks the Commission to inform Parliament of the results of the assessment; _________________ 78 Respectively ‘Base Erosion and Anti- Abuse Tax’ (BEAT), ‘Global Intangible Low Tax Income’ (GILTI) and ‘Foreign- Derived Intangible Income’ (FDII).
Amendment 1000 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 154 c (new)
Paragraph 154 c (new)
154 c. Notes that developing countries might not possess the resources to implement newly agreed international or European tax standards and /or might have more urgent tax gap issues to tackle to ensure they generate sufficient revenues to provide for essential public services; subsequently calls on the Council to exclude counter measures such as cuts in development aid;
Amendment 1005 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 154 g (new)
Paragraph 154 g (new)
154 g. Notes the current negotiations between the EU and Switzerland towards a Framework Agreement; stresses its view that the EU should renegotiate its trade, economic and other relevant bilateral agreements with Switzerland to bring them into line with EU anti-tax fraud policy and anti-money laundering legislation, so as to eliminate serious flaws in the Swiss supervisory system which enable a policy of internal banking secrecy to continue, as well as the creation of offshore structures worldwide, tax fraud and tax evasion not constituting a criminal offence, weak supervision, the inadequate self-regulation of obliged entities, and aggressive prosecution and harassment of whistle-blowers;
Amendment 1021 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 158
Paragraph 158
158. Reiterates its call for the EU to have a leading role in the global fight against tax evasion, aggressive tax planning and money laundering, in particular through Commission initiatives in all related international forums; calls on the EU as a member of the G20 to aim for that forum to undertake a strong action against tax competition;
Amendment 1041 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 160 a (new)
Paragraph 160 a (new)
160 a. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to push for a second set of international tax reform gathering all countries interested on an equal footing and aiming at tackling the growing corporate tax race to the bottom and the allocation of taxing rights;
Amendment 1097 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 170 b (new)
Paragraph 170 b (new)
170 b. Notes that some tax treaties allow the development of potential harmful tax schemes, such as the ‘SingleMalt’ 1awhich directs profits to countries with which Ireland has a double taxation agreement but that do not have any corporation tax; asks the European Commission to investigate such schemes and assess if they constitute an abuse of tax treaties; _________________ 1a Christian Aid, ‘Impossible’ structures: tax outcomes overlooked by the 2015 tax Spillover analysis, Part Two, 2017 https://www.christianaid.ie/sites/default/fil es/2018-02/impossible-structures-tax- report.pdf
Amendment 1102 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 a (new)
Paragraph 171 a (new)
171 a. Asks Member States to renegotiate their bilateral tax treaties with third countries with the aim of introducing anti-abuse clauses, preventing ‘treaty shopping’ and a race to the bottom among developing countries;
Amendment 1103 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 171 b (new)
Paragraph 171 b (new)
171 b. Reiterates its call on the European Union and its Member States to ensure that, when negotiating tax and investment treaties with developing countries, income or profits resulting from cross-border activities be taxed in the source country, where value is extracted or created; stresses, in this regard, that the UN Model Tax Convention ensures a fairer distribution of taxing rights between source and residence countries; stresses than when negotiating tax treaties, the European Union and its Member States should comply with the principle of policy coherence for development established in Article 208 TFEU;
Amendment 1132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 177
Paragraph 177
177. Welcomes the broad definition of both ‘intermediary’ and ‘reportable cross- border arrangement’ in the recently adopted DAC683 ; _________________ 83stresses that the relevant information in relation to potentially aggressive tax planning arrangements should also be accessible to the general public; _________________ 83 OJ L 139, 5.6.2018, p. 1. OJ L 139, 5.6.2018, p. 1.
Amendment 1149 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 178 a (new)
Paragraph 178 a (new)
178 a. Calls for a rotation of auditors every 7 years to prevent conflicts of interests and the limitation of the provision of non-audit services to a minimum;
Amendment 1152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 178 b (new)
Paragraph 178 b (new)
178 b. Reiterates that intermediaries play a crucial role in facilitating money laundering and the financing of terrorism and should beheld accountable for these actions;
Amendment 1158 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 179 a (new)
Paragraph 179 a (new)
179 a. Points out that professional secrecy cannot be used for the purposes of protection, the covering up of illegal practices or violating the spirit of the law; urges that the client/attorney privilege principle should not impede adequate STRs or the reporting of other potentially illegal activities without prejudice to the rights guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the general principles of criminal law; calls on the Commission to issue guidance on the interpretation and application of the legal privilege principle for professionals and to introduce a clear demarcation line between traditional judicial advice and lawyers acting as financial operators, in line with case-law of European courts;
Amendment 1159 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 179 b (new)
Paragraph 179 b (new)
179 b. Calls on the Commission to assess the possibilities of blacklisting financial and non-financial intermediaries based in the EU which operate branches in countries blacklisted as non-cooperative jurisdictions or which are listed as high risk third countries by the Commission; Suggests further that intermediaries should be restricted from operating in the single market if convicted of financial crimes or of facilitating tax evasion;
Amendment 1167 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 180 a (new)
Paragraph 180 a (new)
180 a. Calls for a general EU fund to be set up to give appropriate financial support to whistle-blowers whose livelihood is put at risk as a result of disclosures of criminal activity or facts with clear public interest;
Amendment 1174 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 181 a (new)
Paragraph 181 a (new)
181 a. Is concerned by the impact of non- disclosure agreements in employment contracts and dismissal agreements, particularly in the financial sector; calls on the Commission to assess the possibility of proposing legislation banning abusive non-disclosure agreements and declared void agreements which limit the employee’s ability and right to report unlawful activity;
Amendment 1207 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 188 a (new)
Paragraph 188 a (new)
188 a. Highlights that trade unions should have a greater role in the negotiation of whistleblowing policies and channels in the workplace; calls on Member States to allow, in national law, for whistle-blowers to report wrongdoing to a union representative if they feel they cannot report it internally;
Amendment 1224 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 194 a (new)
Paragraph 194 a (new)
194 a. Notes that no EU Member States were included on the EU list of non- cooperative jurisdictions as EU Member States were not assessed; welcomes the declaration from the Chair of the Code of Conduct Group indicating that Member States could be assessed in the future1a; demands that such assessment is conducted without any further delay; _________________ 1a “The fact of screening the EU Member States with the same criteria is exactly what is under discussion in the context of the revision of the mandate of the Code Group that currently the Austrian Presidency of the Council is taking forward.” Exchange of views with Fabrizia Lapecorella, Chair of the Code of Conduct Group on Business Taxation, European Parliament, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/1 55396/TAX3%20Verbatim%2010%20Oct ober%202018_OR.pdfOct 2018
Amendment 1233 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 199 a (new)
Paragraph 199 a (new)
199 a. Reiterates its call for the creation of an EU Tax Policy Coherence and Coordination Centre (EUTPCCC) within the structure of the Commission1a,which would ensure effective and expeditious cooperation between Member States’ and facilitate early warning in cases like the Cum Ex scandal; urges Member States to support this call and for the Commission to present a legislative proposal for such a mechanism; _________________ 1a European Parliament resolution of 6 July 2016 on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect (2016/2038(INI))
Amendment 1280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 207
Paragraph 207
207. Takes the view that the work of the TAXE, TAX2, PANA and TAX3 committees should be continued, in the forthcoming parliamentary term, in a permanent structure within Parliament such as a subcommittee to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON), including Members from a diverse range of committees; considers that the Commissioner for Taxation, the Chair of the CoC Group and the Finance minister holding the rotating EU presidency should appear at least twice a year before the heretofore mentioned permanent structure;