ETAF General Assembly re-elects Philippe Arraou as President and re-appoints its Board
On Wednesday 17 April, the ETAF General Assembly unanimously re-elected Philippe Arraou (CNOEC) as President for another three years. Mr Arraou has been President of ETAF since its creation in 2015. “It is a great pleasure for me to have been re-elected as ETAF President for another term and I warmly thank all ETAF members for their renewed confidence”, declared Philippe Arraou, ETAF President. “More than ever, I remain committed to advocate for balanced and fair EU tax rules, to support modernising the international tax system, and to champion strong, independent and regulated tax professions across Europe”, he added. During its General Assembly in Brussels, Volker Kaiser (BStBK), Michael Korth (DStV), Benoît Vanderstichelen (ITAA), Robert Sova (CECCAR) and Andrea Rabb (Moklasz) were also re-elected for another three-year term in the ETAF Board.
EU officials and tax practitioners discuss how to make the EU tax system simpler, rationalised and future-proof
EU officials, experts and tax advisers discussed on Wednesday 17 April how to make the EU tax system simpler, rationalised and future-proof at a conference organised by the European Tax Adviser Federation (ETAF) in Brussels. The full-room event also gathered 1 800 people online. In his introductory speech, ETAF President, Philippe Arraou gave some preliminary food for thought to panellists by presenting the ETAF manifesto, which sets out 25 recommendations to the European Commission and the European Parliament for the next five years. During the first panel moderated by Elodie Lamer (Journalist for Tax Notes), Benjamin Angel (Director of Direct Taxation, Tax Coordination, Economic Analysis and Evaluation at the DG TAXUD of the European Commission), MEP Isabel Benjumea Benjumea (EPP, Spain), Panayiotis Nicolaides (Director of Research at the EU Tax Observatory) and Bart Van Coile (President of the Belgian Institute for Tax Advisors and Accountants) had a forward-looking discussion about what the future tax policies under the next European Commission should look like. The second panel, moderated by Jacomien van den Hurk (Director EU Public and Regulatory Affairs at PwC) touched upon the future perspectives for tax advisers in the EU. Ana Xavier (Head of Unit Economic Analysis of Taxation, Impact Assessment and Evaluation support at the DG TAXUD of the European Commission), Pascal Saint-Amans (Former Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, Non-resident fellow at Bruegel, Partner at Brunswick), Sean Bray (Director of European Policy of Tax Foundation Europe) and Florin Toma (Expert accountant and Member of the Body of Expert and Licensed Accountants of Romania - CECCAR) discussed in-depth the complexity of EU tax laws, the recent announcement of the European Commission to reduce reporting requirements for companies by 25%, tax transparency as well as the impact of digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the work of tax advisers. A press release with the main takeaways from the event can be found here and the recording of the conference is available here.
IESBA officially launches its global ethics standards on tax planning
On Monday 15 April, the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) announced the launch of its global standards on ethical considerations in tax planning and related services, incorporated in the IESBA Code of Ethics. Following certification by the Public Interest Oversight Board (PIOB), the standards establish a clear framework of expected behaviours and ethics provisions for use by all professional accountants, and respond to public interest concerns about tax avoidance and the role played by consultants in light of revelations in recent years such as the Paradise and Pandora Papers. Moving away from a purely mechanical and legalistic approach, the goal of the standards is to provide a principles-based framework and a global ethical benchmark applicable to tax planning services and activities, the IESBA said. IESBA strongly encourages other tax professionals to use these standards as well, when dealing with tax planning, to ensure due consideration of public interest as well as potential reputational, commercial, and wider economic consequences for their clients or employing organizations. The standards will become effective on 1 July 2025.
Enrico Letta unveils his High-Level Report on the future of the Single Market
Former Italian Prime Minister and current President of the Jacques Delors Institute, Enrico Letta, presented on Wednesday 17 April his report "Much more than a market: Empowering the Single Market to deliver a sustainable future and prosperity for all EU Citizens" to the European Council. The 147-page report, which was commissioned by EU leaders, underscores the need for a renewed vision to align the Single Market with the contemporary context, emphasizing its ongoing evolution as a pivotal driver of growth, prosperity, and solidarity in Europe, including his proposal for a “fifth freedom” to “enhance research, innovation and education in the Single Market”. Concerning taxation, the report says that despite the recent steps forward, tax fragmentation remains a major barrier for EU businesses and SMEs in particular. It calls for a harmonised EU tax framework and a new single set of rules to determine the tax base of enterprises, with differentiated frameworks for large groups of companies and for SMEs. Furthermore, the report calls to finalise pending legislative initiatives in the field of VAT, to review VAT rules for the tourism sector and to consider greater harmonization of VAT neutralization options for donations across the Single Market. Noting the critical need to safeguard the Single Market and ensure a level playing field, the report says article 116 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union provides a "safety valve" when severe distortions require EU intervention. This rule would allow the Council of the EU to move from unanimity to qualified majority voting on selected tax issues. Moreover, the report explores several ways to unleash the potential of European SMEs, including a European Code of Business Law, providing businesses with a 28th regime to operate within the Single Market. On the topic of professional regulation, the report recognised that if in certain specific cases it may act as a barrier to entry to protect insiders, “in many cases, such regulation is important to ensure the provision of high quality and trustworthy services”.
Conclusions of the European Council of 17 – 18 April
Over the course of a two-day summit on Wednesday 17 and Thursday 18 April, EU leaders adopted conclusions on Ukraine, Türkiye, the Middle East and a new European competitiveness deal. On the latter, EU leaders stressed the urgent need for the Council and the Commission to make rapid progress on all measures identified as necessary to create truly integrated European capital markets. They notably proposed harmonising relevant aspects of national corporate insolvency frameworks, fostering investments through targeted convergence of corporate systems, improving the convergence and efficiency of supervision of capital markets across the EU, improving conditions for equity investments, strengthening the financial literacy of citizens and reviewing and simplifying the regulation framework to cut red tape. According to several press reports, a previous draft version of the conclusions was reportedly calling for the harmonisation of relevant aspects of national corporate tax law to foster equity investments but this mention has been removed in the final draft due to the strong opposition of several Member States. At its meeting in June 2024, the European Council will review progress and discuss additional steps to deepen the Capital Markets Union.
France renews push for a global minimum wealth tax
France stands ready to support the Brazilian G20 presidency’s focus on wealth taxation, French Minister Bruno Le Maire reportedly said on Wednesday 17 April during an event at the IMF/World Bank spring meetings in Washington. France supports complementing the Two-Pillar global tax reform plan with a third Pillar (taxation of the richest individuals) and wants to complete all that work in three years, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told to the press. The Finance Ministers of the G20 countries discussed the issue of taxing the super-rich at a meeting in São Paulo last February, at the request of the Brazilian G20 Presidency. To push discussions forward, the Brazilian G20 Presidency has commissioned economist Gabriel Zucman, Director of the EU Tax Observatory, to study the feasibility of a minimum tax on the super-rich and present proposals to the group.
European Commission launches interim evaluation of the Fiscalis programme 2021-2027
The European Commission launched on Monday 15 April the interim evaluation of the Fiscalis programme 2021-2027, which is due to be published in Q3 2025. The programme has the general objectives of supporting tax authorities to enhance the functioning of the internal market; foster the competitiveness of the EU and fair competition in the EU and protect the financial and economic interests of the EU and its Member States. For the period 2021-2027, it has a budget of EUR 269 million. The interim evaluation will cover the period 2021-2023/2024 and will assess the effectiveness and efficiency, relevance, coherence, and EU added value of the programme through assessing the outputs, results and impacts of its implementation, the Commission said. The Commission will consult all beneficiaries of the programme, mainly tax administrations. The broader public is only very indirectly affected by the programme’s results, as the results happen mostly between and within tax administrations, it said. Interested stakeholders can give feedback to the European Commission on the planned interim evaluation until 13 May 2024.
FISC subcommittee activity report 2020 – 2024
The Secretariat of the FISC Subcommittee of the European Parliament issued on Thursday 18 April a report reflecting on all its activities since its creation in 2020.“During this mandate, FISC has also proven that it has become an important agenda setter for the discussion on international and EU tax policies. Our hearings, exchanges of views and reports provided a central platform to discuss advances in international taxation. We also had several missions to third countries such as the United States, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK and to EU Member States such as Luxembourg, Ireland or France to discuss at political level how to reform the international tax system and how to stop tax avoidance and evasion”, said FISC Chair, MEP Paul Tang, in the foreword. Towards the end of 2021, the FISC Coordinators decided to structure their work around work streams and cluster studies, workshops, hearings and missions in order to draft own-initiative (INI) reports with relevant findings, sound analyses and clear political conclusions. Since 2022, the FISC Subcommittee has worked on the following work streams: further reform of corporate taxation rules, lessons learnt from the Pandora Papers and other revelations and the role of taxation in times of crisis, the report said.
Markus Pieper renounces the post of EU SMEs Envoy
MEP Markus Pieper (EPP/Germany) has resigned from the post of EU SMEs Envoy, to which the European Commission had appointed him, on the evening of Monday 15 April, just hours before he was due to take up the post and after 380 MEPs voted against his appointment last week. Mr Pieper justified his decision by pointing to the fact that the European Commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, who is responsible for SMEs, had boycotted in advance his appointment for “party political reasons”. “I currently see no possibility of fulfilling the legitimate expectations associated with the SME Envoy”, he added. “The President both respects and regrets Markus Pieper's decision not to take up his post as SME Envoy on 16 April as planned. Markus Pieper is a proven expert on SMEs and has prevailed in a multi-stage selection process. The autonomy of each EU institution in appointing its senior officials must be respected,” said the Commission’s chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, in a press release.
