All EU states support the main objectives of the EU Commission proposal for mandatory automatic exchange of information on tax rulings, according to a report of the outcome of a June 19 ECOFIN meeting in Luxembourg. At the meeting, EU finance ministers also discussed a directive on taxation of cross-border interest and royalty payments, and reached conclusions on harmful tax competition.
The ministers said they hope reach agreement on the details of automatic exchange of tax rulings by Fall 2015. Further technical work must be done on the issue of the scope of the information to be exchanged, the timing of the start of exchange of information, and the role the EU Commission could play regarding exchange of information between member states, the ministers said.
The Council also discussed a proposed recast of directive 2003/49/EC on taxation applicable to cross-border interest and royalty payments between associated companies. A proposal was advanced to agree first on an antiabuse clause for the directive; however, a minority of ministers did not agree with splitting the proposal.
The Council also endorsed a Code of Conduct working group report on aimed at eliminating harmful tax competition.
The Council also said that, with regard to the Code of Conduct (Business Taxation), it:
- welcomes the progress achieved by the Code Group during the Latvian Presidency as set out in its report (doc. 9620/15 FISC 60 ECOFIN 443);
- invites the Group to continue its discussion on the future of the Group;
- asks the Group to continue monitoring standstill and the implementation of the rollback as well as its work under the Work Package 2011;
- invites the Commission to continue the dialogue with Liechtenstein on the application of the principles of the Code of Conduct, as set out in the report;
- invites the Group to continue to monitor the alignment of the Patent boxes regimes in line with the compromise on the nexus approach; and
- invites the Group to report back on its work to the Council by the end of the Luxembourg Presidency.
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