by Davide Anghileri, University of Lausanne
The EU Commission has requested public feedback on a proposal to allow some European Union decisions on taxation to be reached by qualified majority voting rather than unanimous agreement by all EU countries.
Under the EU proposal, tax measures would become EU law if supported by a minimum number of EU countries, representing a minimum share of the EU population. The consultation will last until 17 January.
Since the treaty of Rome was signed in 1958, European Union decisions on taxation have been required to be unanimous. The limit is designed to guarantee national sovereignty.
However, taxation is the last policy domain where unanimity is the sole rule in contrast to most other policy areas, where the ordinary legislative procedure has increasingly been used.
The EU Commission said that unanimity in taxation is an obstacle to efficient decision-making and makes it quite impossible to achieve an effective single market in taxation. Thus, only a few achievements in the field of taxation have been attained.
The aim of the consultation is to explore possibilities of make EU law-making in taxation policy more efficient by using qualified majority voting.
The Commission also aims to trigger a debate within the European Council, European Parliament, and with interested stakeholders on how law-making in taxation policy can be made more efficient within the opportunities available in the current Treaties.
The final purpose of the consultation is to enable the EU to keep pace with the rapid economic, social, and competitive changes which tax policy needs to respond to with a more efficient law-making in the field of taxation policy.
In this way, the EU will be able to respond to the expectations of Union citizens, who have cited fair taxation as one of the priority areas for EU action.
The Commission will summarise the input received in a synopsis report explaining how the input will be taken on board and, if applicable, why certain suggestions cannot be taken up.
Davide Anghileri
Davide Anghileri is a PhD candidate at the University of Lausanne, where he is writing his thesis on the attribution of profits to PEs. He researches transfer pricing issues and lectures for the Master of Advanced Studies in International Taxation and Executive Program on Transfer Pricing.
Anghileri, a Contributing Editor at MNE Tax, previously worked as a policy advisor to the Swiss government on BEPS issues.
Davide can be reached at [email protected].
Latest posts by Davide Anghileri (see all)
- Swiss government approves new law governing tax treaties - November 11, 2020
- EU states’ compliance with tax avoidance directives assessed in Commission report - August 26, 2020
- Italy clarifies VAT reporting obligations of online marketplaces - June 16, 2020
- EU blacklist: Cayman Islands added with other three jurisdictions - February 18, 2020
- Italy adopts digital services tax, notional interest deduction - January 8, 2020
Be the first to comment