{"id":12868,"date":"2011-11-17T09:19:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-17T09:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=12868"},"modified":"2011-11-17T09:19:48","modified_gmt":"2011-11-17T09:19:48","slug":"the-eu-signals-its-intention-to-tackle-tax-haven-abuse-and-its-track-record-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2011\/11\/17\/the-eu-signals-its-intention-to-tackle-tax-haven-abuse-and-its-track-record-is-good\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU signals its intention to tackle tax haven abuse – and its track record is good"},"content":{"rendered":"

The EU Observer has reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso unveiled his work programme for next year at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday (15 November), calling it a \"blueprint for stability and growth.\"<\/p>\n

Out of the list of 129 separate projects for new EU laws and assorted non-binding strategy papers and recommendations, he highlighted the publication of a commission Annual Growth Strategy; measures to put an end to tax havens and a \"quick reaction mechanism\" against VAT fraud; as well as laws to end fiddles in the disbursement of EU funds.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The reported continued:<\/p>\n

According to commission papers, the tax-haven document, due in autumn 2012, will not be legally binding. But it will aim to \"develop a reinforced strategy to protect the EU against the challenges of unco-operative jurisdictions outside the EU.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also welcome was the report that:<\/p>\n

EU countries will next year be asked to create a pan-EU \"framework\" for freezing the funds of people involved in terrorist activity and build a joint electronic register to screen financial transactions for terrorist groups on the model of the US Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The EU haw an impressive record in tackling tax haven abuse: in my opinion it has been the\u00a0most\u00a0effective agency in the world in doing so. Its\u00a0European Union Savings Tax Directive is flawed, but is making progress, and\u00a0even\u00a0as it stands is a beacon for the importance of\u00a0automatic information exchange whilst its\u00a0EU Code of Conduct on Business Taxation has been\u00a0enormously\u00a0helpful in tackling tax abuse both on\u00a0and offshore\u00a0and is\u00a0pushing\u00a0the\u00a0Crown Dependencies\u00a0steadily\u00a0out of\u00a0business.<\/p>\n

The new development looks like an update on the\u00a0Code of Conduct on Business Taxation. That is also not law, but it has been extraordinarily effective. As such I warmly welcomne this move.<\/p>\n

In addition, the moves on terrorist financing simply won't work without bettr company registries and registries of trusts. Might they be on the way<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The EU Observer has reported: Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso unveiled his work programme for next year at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,44,80,32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eu-std","category-europe","category-secrecy-jurisdictions","category-tax-havens","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}