Following weeks of intensive debates concerning the proposal of the Commission regards manda-tory automatic exchange of information in the field of taxation by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Special Committee on Tax Rulings of the European Parliament, this week, the Plenum of the European Parliament voted on the proposal.

Proposal of the Commission

The Directive is an Amendment of Directive 2011/16/EU, orienting itself towards Action 13 of the OECD's BEPS Action Plan (reducing the tax base and cross-border shifting of profits). An automatic exchange of information shall be set up between the tax authorities of those countries, in which companies are economically active. This information consists of: turnover, profit before tax, paid income tax, number of employees, nominal capital, retained earnings, economic activities and fixed assets. This concerns corporations with a turnover in excess of Eur 750 million. This information will not be made available to the public. The Directive shall come into force on 01.01.2017.

More competencies for the Commission?

During a first debate, the competent rapporteur Dariusz Rosati of the European People's Party reported of the adopted amendments in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. These amendments shall give the Commission the opportunity to control the exchange of information, to get access to information in case of state subsidies regarding tax breaks and to draw up reports on the results, which have been achieved. Some MEPs criticised that one the one hand information would not be made available to the public and that on the other only a fraction of companies would be affected as the threshold value had been set at a turnover starting at Eur 750 million. The Committee rejected proposals of the S&D faction for more transparency and lowering the threshold to a value of over Eur 40 million (this would obliged another 20,000 corporations).

However, Commissioner Pierre Moscovici stated that the Commission has no competence for tax issues and that the desired exchange between its institution and the tax authorities would not be compatible with the OECD Agreement. Apart from that, a Directive on Administrative Cooperation, which regulates such an exchange of information, was already in force.

Vote and future

The European Parliament accepted the proposal with amendments by a majority of 567 votes in favour to 30 against with 53 abstentions.

Further information:

Proposal of the Commission

Action Plan 13