MEPs Back Plans To Tighten Tax Planning Reporting Rules

EU MEPs have supported plans to require intermediaries promoting aggressive, cross-border tax schemes to report those plans to the authorities.

Under the proposal, service providers who design or promote such plans would be required to provide details of their schemes in a central directory. The disclosed information would then be made automatically available to national tax authorities in all EU member states.

MEPs voted in favor of the proposals by 541 votes to 33, with 61 abstentions.

Rapporteur Emmanuel Maurel said: “The European Parliament remains steadfast in its commitment to greater transparency and strong measures to tackle tax avoidance and tax evasion. When it comes to aggressive tax planning, public authorities must clean up the mess; they cannot limit themselves to the flow of new schemes, they have to tackle the stock.”