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88 • Fifty Shades of Tax Dodging The second shortcoming noted by the review is in relation to bearer shares where the review notes “serious legal gaps” and lack of ownership information. 964 The last problem identified is in relation to trusts. While these structures are not recognised under Polish law, it is possible to administer trusts from Poland and in that case the review notes that ownership information for the settlors, beneficiaries and trustees is not captured by the authorities. 965 In the EU negotiations on the fourth anti-money laundering directive at the end of 2014 the Polish government is reported to have been one of the countries against making beneficial ownership information fully available to the public. 966 However, the government’s official position is not known as it has currently not clarified how it plans to implement the directive and whether it will allow full public access to the registers. While the government’s position is unclear the position of its citizens is crystal clear, with a survey conducted in 2015 showing that 82 per cent of Poles favour making the information public. 967 EU solutions Poland headed for a collision course with the European Commission after months of stalling on a reply to a request for information on the country’s tax ruling practice. In June the Commission took the unusual step of threatening Poland – together with Estonia – with legal action unless the information was handed over within one month. 968 According to the Ministry of Finance, by June 2015 they were still conducting analysis to look into the “legality of providing information on APAs [one type of tax rulings] to the Commission.” 969 Finally, in reply to the Commission’s request, the Ministry of Finance sent 25,000 individual tax rulings out of which 700 had a cross-border element. 970 The Ministry reports that all individual rulings along with the request for interpretation are published in the Bulletin of Public Information. However, this is only after removing data identifying the applicant. It further states that it supports the publication of anonymised data on the number and type of APAs under the EU’s Joint Transfer Pricing Forum. 971 The Ministry of Finance reports that it supports the Commission’s attempt to re-launch the proposal for a coordinated EU approach to corporate taxation (the socalled Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) proposal). However, the Ministry also reports that it is against the consolidation of tax bases in the EU, without which the proposal is toothless against tax dodging. 972 The Ministry of Finance also states that it sees the EU’s Code of Conduct Group on Business Taxation as only a “partially” effective way of removing harmful tax practices in the EU. 973 A week after the Commission published its list of noncooperative jurisdictions 974 (or tax havens) in June 2015, the Polish government delisted Bermuda from its own national list of uncooperative jurisdictions, following “furious criticism” from Bermuda officials. 975 Shortly before the publication of the Commission list, Poland also delisted Gibraltar from its own list. 976 Moves like these can have consequences for the Commission list, as only jurisdictions listed on at least ten Member States’ national list are included on the Commission’s list. 977 Global solutions Poland has a representative acting as an expert in the Committee of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters. Consequently, Poland fully supports the UN processes aimed at assisting developing countries on tax. However, the Polish government states that it sees a need to analyse the establishment of an intergovernmental body under the auspices of the United Nations on tax before deciding its position. 978 At the Financing for Development (FfD) conference in July 2015, the Polish government did not deviate from the EU line, which rejected the establishment of the UN intergovernmental body. According to Polish internal policy, all Tax Information Exchange Agreements have to be signed with a condition of reciprocity. 979 This condition implies that Poland will effectively exclude exchanging information with most developing countries, since they do not have the capacity and the systems to collect and share information from their own countries automatically. Conclusion Steps have been taken forward by the Polish government against tax dodging in the past year, with new CFC rules, a General Anti-Avoidance Rule and other measures intended to shore up the tax base of Poland. Encouragingly, the Ministry of Finance has started to cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within the PCD process, and taxation and its effects on developing countries is one of the issues being looked at. These are all positive signs of change. However, a lot of work still remains, not least on corporate transparency where Poland often takes a negative stand, as was again demonstrated in 2015 when the government decided to implement confidential country by country reporting requirements. Poland has deepened its activities at the EU and global level. An indication of this came during the FfD summit where the Minister of Finance was present as a head of the Polish delegation. Unfortunately, however, Poland did not support the establishment of an intergovernmental tax body.
Fifty Shades of Tax Dodging • 89 Slovenia “[LuxLeaks will] weaken Juncker’s and the Commission’s position.” Slovenian Prime Minster Miro Cerar, November 2014 980 General overview This year has seen the launch of a tax reform and the continuation of a focused effort to crack down on tax dodging in Slovenia. This builds on large-scale reforms in 2014, with a major organisational restructuring of the tax administration, and the creation for the first time of a department focusing solely on transfer pricing. 981 A change in government in September 2014 has not slowed down the pace of change, with the new coalition agreement stressing the fight against economic crime and corruption, higher effectiveness at collecting taxes, the fight against the ‘grey economy’, the strengthening of the tax culture and a number of new tax initiatives launched in the budget in June 2015. 982 The Slovenian economy is home to a relatively modest number of multinational companies. Among the smaller EU Member States, only Greece receives less foreign direct investment (FDI) as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP). 983 As a result there is more focus on domestic challenges to the tax system in Slovenia than in many other EU Member States. However, in mid-2015 the government adopted a six-year strategy to achieve the increased internationalisation of Slovene companies and to attract more FDI. 984 As part of this strategy, export to non-EU markets is targeted to expand annually by 5 per cent, with a focus on areas such as China, India and Central Asia, among others. 985 Combined with an ambitious privatisation strategy – which in 2015 alone brought in new major multinational actors in the economy including Heineken and the American bank Merill Lynch – it seems likely that the issue of international tax planning may increasingly find its way onto the domestic agenda. 986 Tax policies In 2014, major changes have occurred in the organisation of the tax administration in the Republic of Slovenia. On the basis of the Financial Administration Act, 987 the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia 988 was established on 1 August 2014, uniting the Customs Administration and Tax Administration. In the field of tax supervision, the Financial Administration of the Republic of Slovenia reports that it performed 6,822 financial supervisions in the field of the implementation of laws on taxing, Tax Procedure Act and EU legislation, and recovered an additional €97 million in tax obligations. 989 As well as this, the financial inspectors also performed several focused supervisions, including transfers to tax havens (131 supervisions with violations detected in 39 per cent of cases), and a newly established department for transfer pricing performed 73 focused tax inspections with an additional €5.37 million in taxes collected as a result. 990 The LuxLeaks database did not show any data about Slovenian companies. In spite of this, however, the LuxLeaks affair attracted the attention of Slovenia’s media. 991 The Slovenian delegates in the European Parliament also responded to the scandal. They proposed the independent investigation of relevant institutions and suggested that there needed to be solutions for unacceptable and unfair tax practices. 992 Tax rulings According to the Ministry of Finance, the Slovenian law provides for rulings in the form of clarification for companies on how the tax law applies to them, and the government can issue binding information on the tax treatment of planned transactions or business events. 993 However, Slovenia is one of a handful of EU Member States that do not offer binding information or rulings in relation to transfer pricing, the so-called Advance Pricing Agreements (APA). 994 According to the Ministry, Slovenia has complied with the Commission’s request for information on the country’s tax rulings, but – citing ‘tax secrecy’ – declines to make the information public. 995 Under the system of information exchange on tax rulings within the EU, Slovenia has neither received nor sent information regarding tax rulings to another EU Member State. 996
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