EU Parliament Supportive Of Plans To Harmonise Tax Base

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

02 December 2005

A European Commission spokeswomen stated on Wednesday that the European Parliament's approval in principle of a proposal to harmonise the European company tax base will greatly increase its chances of eventually becoming EU law.

According to Dow Jones Newswires, Maria Assimakopoulou, spokeswoman for Tax Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs, said that the Parliament's monetary affairs committee's approval of the plan "is significant because the Commission will need Parliament support" for the measures to be enacted in legislation.

Mr Kovacs is of the belief that if companies were allowed to apply a single EU-wide set of rules for company tax purposes, this would eliminate most of the problems such as double taxation they currently face when they do business across borders, and lead to a substantial reduction in compliance costs.

The UK, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and Slovakia are opposed to any move towards corporate tax harmonisation. However, Kovacs has indicated that the Commission will forge ahead with its plans to complete legislation towards a single corporate tax base by 2009 regardless, with these countries left out of the scheme.

Recommended