BETA

27 Amendments of Markus FERBER related to 2018/2121(INI)

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10

10. Recalls that ATP describes the setting of a tax design aimed at reducing tax liability by using the technicalities of a tax system or of mismatches between two or more tax systems that go against the spirit of the law; points out that some Member States make it particularly easy to set up schemes for ATP in order to attract business;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14

14. Reiterates its call on companies, as taxpayers, to fully comply with their tax obligations and refrain from aggressive tax planning leading to BEPS, and to consider fair taxation strategy as an important part of their corporate social responsibility; points out that Member States in the spirit of loyal cooperation must not facilitate the creation of aggressive tax planning schemes;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)

15 a. Calls on the European Commission and Member States to harmonise procedures for a digital system of filing tax returns in order to facilitate cross-border activities and reduce red tape;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16

16. Takes note of the statement made by the French Finance Minister at the TAX3 meeting of 23 October 2018 regarding the need to discuss the concept of minimum taxation; welcomes the readiness by France to include the debate on minimum taxation as one of the priorities of its G7 Presidency in 2019;deleted

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
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 solely 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;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24

24. Reiterates its call for a clear definition of 'permanent establishment' and 'virtual permanent establishment' so that companies cannot artificially avoid having a taxable presence in a Member State in which they have economic activity;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Subheading 2.2.2

~~Common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB)~~Facilitating Cross-Border Economic Activity Through Better Cooperation in the Area of Taxation

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33 a (new)

33 a. Stresses that taxation policy in the European Union should not be solely focussed on fighting tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning, but also on facilitating cross-border economic activity by cooperation between tax authorities and smart tax policy design;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 33 b (new)

33 b. Underlines that there is a multitude of tax-related obstacles that hamper cross-border economic activity; urges the European Commission to adopt an action plan addressing these obstacles as a matter of priority;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36

36. Understands that the so-called interim solution is not optimal~~; believes that it~~ and points out that it shall be replaced by a permanent solution taking the form of a virtual permanent establishment as soon as possible; believes that the so-called interim solution will help speed up the search for a better solution at global level, while levelling the playing field in local markets to some extent;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 a (new)

36a. Urges the European Commission to play an active and constructive role in the OECD workstream working on international standards for a virtual permanent establishment;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38

38. Reiterates its call for a broader scope in relation to the exchange of tax rulings and broader access by the Commission; calls on the Commission to swiftly release its first assessment of DAC3 in this regard, looking in particular at the number of rulings exchanged and the number of occasions on which national tax administrations accessed information held by another Member State; asks that the assessment also consider the impact of disclosing key information related to tax rulings (the number of rulings, the names of beneficiaries, the effective tax rate deriving from each ruling);

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38 a (new)

38a. Deplores the fact that the Commissioner in charge of taxation does not recognise the need to extend the existing system for the exchange of information between national tax authorities;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45

45. Stresses that the proposal for public CBCR was submitted to the co-legislators just after the Panama papers scandal on 12 April 2016, and that Parliament adopted its position on it on 4 July 2017; recalls that the latter called for an enlargement of the scope of reporting and protection of commercially sensitive information; ~~deplores the lack of progress and cooperation from the Council since 2016; urges for progress to be made in the Council so that it enters into negotiations with Parliament;~~

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 61

61. Regrets, however, that every year, large amounts of the expected VAT revenue are lost because of fraud; highlights that according to the Commission’s statistics, the VAT gap in 2016 amounted to EUR 147 billion, which represents more than 12 % of the total expected VAT revenue43 ; notes that the Commission estimates that around EUR 50 billion – or EUR 100 per EU citizen each year – is lost to cross-border VAT fraud and that media reports have linked large- scale VAT fraud with organised crime including terrorism44 ; _________________ 43 Study and Reports on the VAT Gap in the EU-28 Member States: 2018 Final Report / TAXUD/2015/CC/131. 44 See Commission press release: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17- 3443_en.htm

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 66 a (new)

66a. Calls on the European Commission to prioritise the issue of the harmonisation and simplification of the common system of value added tax; points out that several countries have implemented fraud-proof systems that allow input tax reduction based on proof of VAT payment and that could serve as a blueprint for VAT reform in the EU;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 68

68. Welcomes the definitive VAT system proposals adopted on 4 October 201745 and 24 May 201846 ; welcomes in particular the Commission’s proposal to apply the destination principle to taxation, which means that VAT would be paid in the country of the customer; _________________ 45 COM(2017)0569, COM(2017)0568 and COM(2017)0567. 46 COM/2018/329.deleted

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 93

93. Urges the Commission to finalise its study on CBI and RBI schemes in the Union; urges the Commission to e~~xamine whether, and, if so, which of these schemes posed a threat to EU legislat~~ither ban CBI and RBI schemes or to at least provide a set of minimum standards in order to mitigate any threat to the European Union;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 136

136. Underscores the problem of money laundering through investment in real estate in European cities through foreign shell companies; recalls that the Commission should assess the necessity and proportionality of harmonising the information in the land and real estate registers and assess the need for the interconnection of those registers; calls on the Commission, if appropriate, to accompany the report with a legislative proposal;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 138

138. Underlines the positive potential of new distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchain technology; notes at the same time the increasing abuse of new payment and transfer methods based on these technologies to launder criminal proceeds or to commit other financial crimes; acknowledges the need to monitor technological developments to ensure that legislation addresses in an effective manner the abuse of new technologies and anonymity, which facilitates criminal activity; considers that money laundering risks of virtual currencies could be significantly reduced if virtual currencies were regulated as financial instruments;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 147

147. Is worried about the accelerating corporate tax race to the bottom worldwide in terms of nominal tax rate76 77 ; _________________ 76 The average corporate income tax rate across the OECD dropped from 32.5 % in 2000 to 23.9 % in 2018. Overall, 22 of the 38 countries surveyed in the latest tax policy reform 2018 report from the OECD now have combined statutory corporate income tax rates equal to or below 25 %, compared with only six in 2000. Source: OECD and Selected Partner Economies, Tax Policy Reforms 2018. 77 It is also worth noting that the EU 28 are already well below this level, with an average corporate income tax rate in 2018 of 21.9 %, down from 32 % in 2000, according to the Commission: Taxation Trends in the European Union - Data for the EU Member States, Iceland and Norward, 2018 Edition (page 36) and Taxation Trends in the European Union - Data for the EU Member States, Iceland and Norward, 2015 Edition (page 147).deleted

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151

151. Welcomes the adoption by the Council of the first EU list on 5 December 2017 and the ongoing monitoring of the commitments made by third countries; notes that the list has been updated several times on the basis of the assessment of those commitments and points out that the black list by now only consists of a handful of countries; underlines that this assessment is based on criteria deriving from a technical scoreboard and that Parliament had no legal involvement in this process~~; calls in this context on the Commission and the Council~~ and that the screening and monito rin~~form Parliament in detail ahead of any proposed change to the list; calls on~~g processes are opaque; points out that it is unclear whether real progress has happened with regards to the Ccoun~~cil to publish a regular progress report regarding black- and grey-listed jurisdictions as part~~tries taken from the black list since its inception; regrets that the list only consists of third countries and that no effective sanctions are linked to the list; calls ofn the ~~regular update from the CoC Group to the Council~~Council to review and revise the list to make it more comprehensive and more effective;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 151 a (new)

151 a. Deplores that the Commissioner in charge of taxation denies that there are also tax havens within the European Union;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 155

155. Renews its call for effective countermeasures aimed at incentivising compliance by the countries listed in Annex I of the EU list; ~~takes note~~deplores that most countermeasures proposed by the Council are left to national discretion;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 176

176. ~~Not~~Welcomes that the Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to examine whether Portugal has applied the Madeira Free Zone regional aid scheme in conformity with its 2007 and 2013 decisions approving it, namely by verifying whether tax exemptions granted by Portugal to companies established in the Madeira Free Zone are in line with the Commission decisions and EU State aid rules; highlights that the Commission is verifying whether Portugal complied with the requirements of the schemes, i.e. whether the company profits benefiting from the income tax reductions originated exclusively from activities carried out in Madeira and whether the beneficiary companies actually created and maintained jobs in Madeira;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 186

186. Urges the Maltese authorities to make progress in identifying the instigators and backers of the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3

Motion for a resolution
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)~~;

2018/12/20
Committee: TAX3