Proposed EU Plan Could Raise Taxes On Multinational Corporations
Two weeks ago, the European Commission announced a new proposal that could raise taxes on some multinational corporations. According to The New York Times, the plan “aims to dissuade governments from giving special tax breaks by forcing them to publicly disclose more tax information.” Specifically, the plan “would oblige each of the bloc’s 28 national tax authorities to share basic information on tax rulings each quarter, beginning in 2016.”
The proposal appears to be just one part of a larger plan to address corporate taxation. Indeed French European Parliament Member Alain Lamassoure called it “a first step” and “called for ‘maximum possible transparency’ so companies and members of the public can also assess the fairness of the deals.”
The EU Observer says European countries “have come under intense pressure to crack down on shady deals that allow firms to reduce tax liabilities by shifting their profits towards states with beneficial tax regimes.” According to one report, increasing transparency rules to avoid this type of profit shifting could generate up to €1 trillion in revenue a year.