The EU wants to tax everyone of us -as political and tax union roll on despite the UK

The EU is after your money. Look at this decision of the European Parliament’s committee:

 

“to table corporate tax measuresECON Press release – Economic and monetary affairs − 01-12-2015 – 11:14 

The EU Commission is asked to table measures to improve corporate tax transparency, coordination and EU-wide policy convergence in legislative recommendations voted by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Tuesday. These recommendations build on the work of Parliament’s Special Committee on Tax Rulings, set up in the wake of the “Luxleaks” revelations, whose recommendations were approved at the 26 November plenary session.
The report by rapporteurs, Anneliese Dodds (S&D, UK) and Luděk Niedermayer (EPP, CR), was approved by 45 votes to 3, with 10 abstentions. The Commission will have to respond to every legal recommendation, even if it does not submit a legislative proposal.
Recommendations
The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee asks the Commission, inter alia, to:

  • table a proposal for country-by-country reporting on profit, tax and subsidies by June 2016
  • table a proposal for introducing a “Fair Tax Payer” label,
  • introduce a Common Tax Base (CCTB) as a first step, which later on should be consolidated as well (CCCTB),
  • table a proposal for a common European Tax Identification Number,
  • table a proposal for legal protection of whistle-blowers,
  • improve cross-border taxation dispute resolution mechanisms,
  • table a proposal for a new mechanism whereby member states should inform each other if they intend to introduce a new allowance, relief, exception, incentive, etc. that may affect the tax base of others,
  • estimate the corporate tax gap (corporate taxes owed minus what has been paid),
  • strengthen the mandate and improve transparency of the Council Code of Conduct Working Group on Business Taxation,
  • provide guidelines regarding “patent boxes” so as to ensure they are not harmful,
  • come up with common definitions for “permanent establishment” and “economic substance” so as to ensure that profits are taxed where value is generated,
  • come up with an EU definition of “tax haven” and counter-measures for those who use them, and
  • improve the transfer pricing framework in the EU

 

Meanwhile the Economic and Monetary Committee is pressing ahead with plans for Taxpayer Identification numbers:

Proper identification of taxpayers is essential to effective exchange of information between tax administrations. The creation of European Taxpayer Identification Number (EU TIN) would provide the best means for this identification. It would allow any third party to quickly, easily and correctly identify and record TINs in cross-border relations and serve as a basis for effective automatic exchange of information between member states tax administrations.”

How is the promised VAT reform coming on, to give the UK some right to choose more lower rates?

The latest statement from the EU is from their expert panel on the proposed VAT reforms which I have already shown here do not mention the UK renegotiation. They say

“Any such unco-ordinated standalone measures adopted by member states would shift focus from  the overriding objective of putting in place a definitive regime at the earliest opportunity. It would create additional distortions within the single market and thereby also increase opportunities for fraud”

So that’s that then. NO VAT reform as promised in the so called renegotiation.

We are on a wild ride to political union. Political union will be expensive. It will mean more EU taxes on UK taxpayers, with our government continuing to protest we are  not in the Union that is taxing us!

 

25 Comments

  1. Lifelogic
    May 31, 2016

    Indeed. After a remain vote they will walk all over us, even more than they do already.

    When Cameron talks about “remaining in a reformed EU” he is taking as much nonsense as when he says “no if no buts to the tens of thousands” or “at heart I am a low tax conservative” or “we will continue cutting taxes”.

    1. Leslie Singleton
      May 31, 2016

      Nadine Dorries had the right of it with her description of Cameron as a (plain unvarnished) liar

      1. Lifelogic
        May 31, 2016

        Keeping the party intact post the referendum is going to be hard, perhaps easier if there is a good Brexit vote rather than a small Remain vote won through lies, fraud, tax payer funded propaganda, a blatantly false prospectus and the huge BBC & establishment bias.

        Even Mrs May is saying things like “we retain control of our borders in the EU”. Just how stupid does she think the voters are?

        The last thing we want is to have Corbyn taking the UK down the Venezuela economic path that he clearly so admires. Airlines are even refusing to fly there now I see.

    2. Bob
      May 31, 2016

      @lifelogic

      “When Cameron talks about “remaining in a reformed EU” he is taking as much nonsense as when he says “no ifs no buts to the tens of thousands” or “at heart I am a low tax conservative” or “we will continue cutting taxes”.”

      How about when he said about Sadiq Khan:

      “Anyone can make a mistake about who they appear on a platform with … but if someone does it time after time after time, it is right to question their judgment,”

      and then standing beside him a couple of days ago at a Remain event in Roehampton he said:

      “I’m proud’ to be standing with Mr Khan, in one generation, someone who is a proud Muslim, a proud Brit and a proud Londoner can become mayor of the greatest city on earth”

      Mr Cameron has now given a five point guarantee card promising among other things, special status within “Europe” (sic) and stability for our country.

      You would have to be seriously naive to believe anything promised by Mr Cameron.

  2. Lifelogic
    May 31, 2016

    What on earth is driving Matt Hancock (Osborne’s side kick) with his absurd and childish class war?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/29/young-matt-hancock-the-privately-educated-minister-fighting-a-ch/

    I have been listening while driving, to Dan Hannan’s excellent “Why Vote Leave”. How anyone can vote remain after reading/listening to this is beyond me. Even available free for new members at Audible.com, read rather well by the author.

    To win a Brexit we surely need as many as possible to read or listen to it.

    1. Richard1
      May 31, 2016

      Yes Dan Hannans book is very good and rather convincing. I wonder Vote Leave don’t make more use of him. Leave would be more likely to win with this kind of rigorously argued analysis than with drivel like ‘we could hire 600,000 more nurses’.

      Matt Hancock’s proposal is absurd we do not need the govt to micro manage hiring decisions for independent economic actors, as a Conservative he should know that. I suppose this is part of the detoxification strategy whereby if Conservatives pretend to be left wing and whip up class hatred, leftists will start voting for them. It hasn’t worked so far.

  3. Mark B
    May 31, 2016

    Good morning.

    Just as well Panama is not in the EU eh ! The Political Class would be well stuffed.

    And what of little Luxembourg ? Will their Prime Minister still be able to provide ‘comfort letters’, or whatever it was called, to large multi-nationals who can offset their large profits and pay little or no tax ?

    Once the EU has control over our money, as we have seen in Greece and elsewhere, they will effectively have control over us. That is the end game.

    The whole idea of the EU, is to have a captive market who have no choice over what they can spend their monies on. The one thing I loved about, Lady Thatcher and her brand of ‘True Conservatism’ was, that it believed in choice. If you let people choose for themselves, they usually tend to make better decisions than government. A Supranational government will make endless bad choices. What might work say for Ireland, might not work for Italy. This is why the whole place is in a mess.

    It is also worth mentioning, as the EU says it wants fairer taxes, that those politicians and EU Civil Servants, enjoy a far more generous tax free benefits than we plebs.

    Orwell was right in his book, Animal Farm. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”

  4. agricola
    May 31, 2016

    Just as the Euro has destroyed jobs in the southern European states, so with this further tax measure there will be a reduction in their ability to attract the business that might get them out of the parlous state they find themselves in. The only thing the developing countries within the EU can offer is low wages for their working population.

    On the positive side, when we escape the grasping hand of the EU, we have an opportunity to set up a fiscal regime in the UK that could be designed to attract and encourage enterprise.

    The part I find incomprehensible is that Cameron/Osborne would have us entrapped in this straightjacket. Under the Trades Descriptions Act they should be prosecuted for calling themselves conservatives. I do hope that Leave makes maximum use of this EU fiscal plan along with the information I gave you about the freedom of the UK to continue with all EU overseas trade agreements that we have been signatories to.

  5. Lifelogic
    May 31, 2016

    I see that our wonderfully inefficient, 50% overpaid & over pensioned state sector cannot even provide public toilets any more. With nearly 1800 having closed. We seem to pay more and more in taxes with virtually nothing being returned. Even collecting the rubbish and providing a loo or two seems to be beyond them. Though they do seem to be rather efficient at the vital “public service” of motorist muggings.

    Once we get out of the EU perhaps we can sort out the bloated & largely incompetent mess that claims to be “public services” in the UK.

    1. Lifelogic
      May 31, 2016

      The EU is of course responsible for much of the absurdity around refuse collections. So perhaps post Brexit this too can be sorted out without the landfill directive and other restrictive, red tape lunacies.

  6. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    May 31, 2016

    Under the penultimate bullet point of :- “Recommendations
    The Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee asks the Commission, inter alia, to: “:-

    * come up with an EU definition of “tax haven” and counter-measures for those who use them,…”

    The discussion within the EU on a definition of “tax-havens” may make amusing entertainment. Ireland springs to mind where a number of the American companies like the freshwater fishing.

    Perhaps the now secret TTIP negotiations between the USA and the EU will necessarily need to encompass such a definition much in advance of the EU Commission’s deliberations. The TTIP is stuck on one particular issue which, should come as no surprise to the readers of your blog JR…Agriculture.

    The French and others wish a whole range of guarantees about agriculture and opt-outs which would invalidate any USA interests. So, what with “tax havens” definitions and the uncertainties about agricultural tariffs, TTIP is just about dead in the water.

    It is in the DNA of American business to despise taxes. England had a slight difference of opinion with them from 1775 to 1783 on the issue and, about the tax havens they were using in South America.

    Mr Juncker is doing his best to hurry TTIP negotiations, perhaps frightened of the next President of the USA in November this year. But a bad deal for the USA on agriculture and the demolishing of what the EU calls tax havens would knock out the possibility of the US Democratic Party coming to power again for the next 25 years, given that a number of EU states are also against that TTIP should include their national healthcare systems.

    The USA is finding it is not negotiating with a single trading block but with a committee of people who cannot deliver because of their underlying lack of democratic mandate. Anything they negotiate can be knocked into the long grass by a 2-million strong EU nation state unless it is bought off by EU internal machinations or more usually, threatened.

    Russia is the chosen tax-haven for the ultra-rich of France. Perhaps we should all set up an online banking facility with President Putin’s banks. After all, they do not have a bad record of selling inappropriate loan insurance and credit card fraud insurance. Nor deliberately fixing Libor therefore systematically stealing from all of us.

  7. CHRISTOPHER HOUSTON
    May 31, 2016

    The Remain Camp are banking on complexity of the issues involved. Fellow conspirators with the un-voted-for EU elite, they choose and support a Soviet device ..complex privileged information and jargon.
    It is the Remain Camp’s blatant campaign of Anti-Democracy and their ongoing threat to our freedom which should be emphasised.

  8. Dame Rita Webb
    May 31, 2016

    I would be more interested in an article that dealt with the reality of an ever increasing tax bill that comes out of London rather than an potential threat from Brussels. In the meantime a cancer is eating away at the UK. Despite the national debt having doubled under Osborne. There are 10,000 fewer coppers, an army that has more horses than tanks and the maritime border is patrolled by four cutters. How long will it be before more of the tax take is spent on servicing the debt than is spent on education? Though whether that is money well spent when 22% of school leavers are functionally illiterate is another question.

    Congrats to Osborne too on his pension reforms. I know of one consultant who is reducing the time he works for the NHS. If he does not his annual allowance is reduced to ÂŁ10,000. Not that its something MPs have to worry about with regard to their pensions.

  9. Lifelogic
    May 31, 2016

    I see Prof. Steven Hawkin has come out for remain on the grounds that it will affect funding for science research.

    This is clearly nonsense, we will have more money available not less (as we will not be paying for all the lunacy that is the EU) and will have a stronger economy due to reduced red tape and lower taxation. Scientific cooperation will continue with countries from around the world and should be enhanced.

    He also still thinks global warming is the greatest threat to the world. This despite the lack of warming for 18 years and all the evidence that the climate sensitivity is far less than the alarmists had invented (for their alarmist computer modelling that has proved to be so misguided).

  10. Tim L
    May 31, 2016

    John,

    I see last night on the news that the Conservative Party has just agreed that the Social Chapter doesn’t need serious reform.

    How else can you interpret Mr Cameron standing in front of a billboard claiming “the EU gaurantees worker’s rights”.

  11. Catching Up
    May 31, 2016

    Just watched The case for an Independent Britain Daniel Hannan on you Tube. A Year old 4.24 minutes only 6,658 views.
    What a great speaker. He speaks like JR. Calm, collected, intelligent

    1. Bob
      May 31, 2016

      @Catching Up

      “What a great speaker. He speaks like JR. Calm, collected, intelligent”

      Which is why the BBC would prefer to hear opinions from the likes of Paloma Faith, Eddie Izzard and Anna Soubry.

  12. alan jutson
    May 31, 2016

    Not a surprise John is it, the Eu will do exactly as it has always done, just plough on regardless with their own agenda.

    Cameron and the Remain lackeys still do not get it do they.

    Also no surprise at the underhand tactics of your leader and the remain camp, with using our taxpayer money, the entire government organisation, and the civil service as a propaganda machine.

    Many of us out here forecast such before the first arguments were made, but were told we were wrong.

    We were promised a fair referendum, but its now very clear to almost everyone this is now fast turning into a farce with propaganda more suited to a banana type republic, with our Prime Minister’s actions and statements.

    Most of us out here are absolutely disgusted with the way Cameron has behaved, you must surely also be embarrassed.

    Does he really think he is going to get genuine Conservative member support for him and his sidekicks to continue in office when this is all over, even if remain do win.

    A Conservative Prime Minister took us into the EU with Lies and deceit, and the present incumbent is doing, and using all he can, to keep us in with lies and deceit again.

    Simply shameful, this is not democracy in action at all.

  13. Lifelogic
    May 31, 2016

    If we vote remain we will indeed be on a wild ride to a very expensive, anti-democratic and disastrous political union. It will mean more EU taxes for UK taxpayers, more red tape, more inconvenience and an end to self determination and any real democracy. More dictatorship from failed politicians like Neil Kinnock and the likes.

    There is no reformed EU on offer, Cameron’s deal was worthless. It is the last chance for the UK to escape and show the others the sensible way to go.

  14. bluedog
    May 31, 2016

    So what’s the rationale of EU tax harmonisation? Easy!

    It’s the last line of defence for the Euro.

    No currency can exist without a sovereign backing it and every sovereign brings the tax base of its citizens as implicit guarantor of the currency. The EU has yet to consummate political union but by coercing all EU nations into a common tax regime, including those nations outside the Euro-zone like the UK, the EU successfully underwrites the Euro.

    So where does this leave Sterling? If the British government capitulates as usual to each and every EU demand, Sterling is left in a unenviable position. If the British tax-base is committed to the support of the Euro, Sterling is potentially worthless.

    Leave must understand that this is a direct assault on the foundations of the Pound.

    Take back control

    Stop the immigration

    Save the Pound.

    1. Know-dice
      May 31, 2016

      Too true, Leavers must push the Remainders.

      It’s clear that the “Opt Out” is not tenable in the short or long term if we remain.

      A semi-detached relationship with the EU doesn’t do anyone any favours, better fully out (that’s what I want) or fully committed with all the downsides that entails 🙁

      De Gaulle said:

      “In politics it is necessary either to betray one’s country or the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.”

      It seems like David Cameron has managed both…

  15. Ian Wragg
    May 31, 2016

    No doubt we will have our EU tax number tattooed on our right forearm.
    I think that this disclosure to Joe public will have a very positive effect for the Leave campaign.
    Cameron should be quizzed endlesly on future developments designed to shore up the ailing Euro. Measures that we will be expected to contribute to.

  16. Bert Young
    May 31, 2016

    There is no end to the imagination and needs of the bureaucrats in Brussels . Every day they must strain their minds to decide on what they recommend next . They never seem to look at the existing systems and decide what can be done to minimise and reduce burden , it is always the other way round ; I suppose they believe that as long as its something extra that they concoct , they are justifying their presence and incomes .

    Aligning ourselves to the mentality of Brussels is an indication of the lack of judgement in our own leaders ; the only way to correct this stupidity is to leave it altogether .

  17. Bert Young
    May 31, 2016

    As a further reminder of the EU interference I have just learned from news in Bermuda that the giant insurer Hiscox will probably return to the UK if Brexit occurs . The former Chairman announced his views today saying that the move to Bermuda in the first place was due to the burdensome EU regulatory regime . How many more escapees will return ?

  18. Simple Soul
    May 31, 2016

    Black clouds over Brussels are blowing towards our shores. By this I mean that Big Business, that ardent champion of the EU as it is today, is going to get it in the neck from the EU as it will be in the near future. This future EU believes heart and soul that Big Business is guilty of tax crime (and much else besides) without any investigation or due process of law. Our business leadership simply has not woken up to what is staring it in the face.

Comments are closed.