The Council of Europe demands the end of tax haven abuse and the introduction of country-by-country reporting

Posted on

Strasbourg, 27.04.2012 — The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has demanded a series of steps to end what it calls “massive tax avoidance, evasion and fraud” caused by secrecy jurisdictions, tax havens and offshore financial centres.

Adopting a resolution based on a report by Dirk van der Maelen (Belgium, SOC), the parliamentarians said tackling global distortions due to harmful or predatory tax practices — including bank secrecy, lack of transparency and effective public oversight, regulatory dumping, predatory tax arrangements and abusive accounting techniques within multinational companies — was “a moral duty” because they drain public finances and cause serious harm to the public interest.

“Thanks to growing public outcries, international co-operation has intensified, notably at the G20 level, to tackle the root problems concerning tax havens […]. However, the situation is far from satisfactory, and further progress is needed to close legal gaps and loopholes,” the Assembly said.

Among other things, the Assembly called for:

· stepping up pressure over secrecy jurisdictions and tax havens identified in the report to phase out fiscal bank secrecy

· country-by-country reporting by multinationals wherever they operate, across all business sectors

· a ban on anonymous accounts, off-balance-sheet bookkeeping and bearer shares

· disclosure of the ultimate beneficial ownership of all business entities, notably trusts and funds

· harmonisation of tax practices across Europe and beyond

· moving towards the automatic exchange of all tax information

· ending artificial tax minimisation techniques “which may be legal but not ethical”

The parliamentarians concluded: “Sound tax systems are the cornerstone of public finances: they underpin democratic governance, state authority, macroeconomic stability and social cohesion.”

Adopted text

Full report

Voting result

Verbatim of the debate

If I might say so, another campaign win.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:

  • Richard Murphy

    Read more about me

  • Support This Site

    If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi using credit or debit card or PayPal

  • Archives

  • Categories

  • Taxing wealth report 2024

  • Newsletter signup

    Get a daily email of my blog posts.

    Please wait...

    Thank you for sign up!

  • Podcast

  • Follow me

    LinkedIn

    LinkedIn

    Mastodon

    @RichardJMurphy

    BlueSky

    @richardjmurphy.bsky.social