EU: New EC competition commissioner to conclude tax investigations

The European Commission (EC) is trying to make massive headway since November when Margrethe Vestager took over as the EC’s competition chief. The EC opened four investigations last year concerning tax deals offered by member countries to foreign companies. The investigations include Ireland’s deal with Apple, the Netherlands deal with Starbucks and Luxembourg’s deals with Fiat and Amazon. Ms. Vestager announced that she wants to focus on these four cases and the EC plans to publish the results of the investigations by this spring.

Ireland’s Minister for Finance Michael Noonan said in November that he expects the investigation into Ireland to be dropped, though the government announced that it would challenge any adverse findings at the European Court of Justice.

The investigation into Luxembourg received a lot of controversy since current EC president Jean-Claude Juncker was the prime minister of Luxembourg when most of the tax rulings were negotiated.

Vestager and EC economics commissioner Pierre Moscovici released a joint opinion piece stating, “We have a situation today where some companies are engaging in aggressive tax planning, made possible by a lack of fiscal harmonisation in the EU and loopholes in national taxation systems,” and that the EC is committed to a proposal for a common consolidated tax base for Europe.

Full Content: The Irish Times

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