James G Neuger
European
Union regulators are looking to force corporate tax avoidance via
offshore havens into the open, with fresh proposals due next week made
more urgent by the Panama Papers revelations.
The European Commission on Tuesday will consider how to
require large companies to make public what they pay in tax in each of
the 28 EU countries and possibly outside the bloc as well.
“There is an important connection between our continuing
work on tax transparency and tax havens that we are building into the
proposal,” EU Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill said in a
statement on Saturday.
The proposal would cover multinational companies with
revenue of at least 750 million euros ($855 million). The commission,
which polices the European single market, figures it would catch
companies that account for 90 percent of EU corporate revenue.
The country-by-country transparency plan was first floated
after revelations in 2014 that Luxembourg, at the heart of the EU, had
struck sweetheart tax deals with multinational companies.
The commission has also used its antitrust powers to go
after companies that benefited from custom-made tax breaks. In October
it
ordered the Netherlands to claim back as much as 30 million euros in
unpaid taxes from Starbucks Corp., and Luxembourg to collect a similar
amount from a Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV financing unit.
Tuesday’s proposal will require approval by EU governments
and the European Parliament. It will be crafted as accounting
legislation which can be passed by a supermajority of the 28
governments, not as a tax measure requiring unanimity.
Hill said the proposal, which is still under discussion internally, will be “carefully thought through but ambitious.”
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