Public Invited To Attend EU Commission Corporate Tax Conference

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

17 October 2003

The European Commission has opened online registration for the upcoming high-level taxation seminar entitled 'EU Corporate Tax Reform Progress and New Challenges' to be held in conjunction with the Italian Presidency of the EU in Rome on December 5 and 6, which will asses progress made in EU corporate tax coordination since Commission proposals in 2001.

The conference will bring together a wide variety of taxation specialists, officials from Member States and the Commission, business and trade union representatives and academics. Taxation Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, Italian Minister of Economy and Finance Giulio Tremonti, former judge at the European Court of Justice Melchior Wathelet and Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament Christa Randzio-Plath will all address the conference. Senior tax experts from Member States' administrations, the business community and the academic and legal spheres will participate in panel discussions.

The conference will in particular consider the increasingly important role of European Court of Justice rulings in the corporate tax field and their consequences for Member States' double taxation treaties. It will also consider the possibility of introducing pilot schemes to test the application of some form of EU-wide consolidated tax base for small and medium-sized enterprises and for the European Company (see IP/01/1376). The Commission is due to present at the conference a Communication reporting on its policy conclusions in this field that is scheduled for adoption in November this year.

The Commission's October 2001 Communication identified several steps which could be taken to remove individual tax obstacles to cross-border trade in the Internal Market and it has since presented proposals to eliminate specific problems and intends to present more. However, the Commission also concluded that in the longer term Member States should agree to allow EU companies to use a single consolidated base for computing tax on their EU-wide profits. The Commission considers that the existence of fifteen separate sets of tax rules for calculating the taxable base in the Internal Market, in addition to creating compliance costs, causes numerous problems such as the absence of relief for losses in cross-border situations, transfer pricing and double taxation. The Commission Communication presented a number of options to achieve such a single tax base. These included:

• Home State Taxation - where a multinational group would be able to opt to calculate the taxable profits for all its EU operations according to the tax rules of the Member State where its headquarters are based, i.e. its 'Home State';
• and a Common (Consolidated) Tax Base - where a multinational group would be able to opt to calculate the taxable profits for all its EU operations according to a new common set of tax rules applicable across the EU.

Members of the public may attend the conference free of charge subject to space restrictions and to registration before 31st October. Journalists are also welcome to participate.

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