Survival of the Richest

Recommendations

Info

Report findings Aggressive tax planning structures A study of the number of structures in the legislation of EU Member States, which can facilitate aggressive tax planning by multinational corporations, showed that there are a great number of very diverse problems on this front across the EU. When it comes to the harmful practice known as patent boxes, the dramatic increase which was seen in 2015 has now stabilised. 2016 has been the year when many political announcements to introduce patent boxes were turned into concrete legislation. In total, patent boxes now exist in over 40 per cent of EU Member States (12 countries, including Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK). Tax treaties European governments continue to sign very problematic tax treaties with developing countries. An analysis of the countries covered by this report shows that they on average have 42 treaties with developing countries, and that these treaties on average reduce developing country tax rates by 3.8 per cent. Of all the countries analysed, Ireland has on average introduced the highest amount of reductions of developing country tax rates – 5.2 percentage points. Analysis by ActionAid has also revealed that even among the countries that do not, on average, have treaties which impose high restrictions on developing country taxing rates, there are a significant amount of ‘very restrictive’ tax treaties, which impose strong constraints on the individual developing countries that have signed them. Among the countries covered by this report, Italy, the UK and Germany are the countries with the highest amount of those very problematic tax treaties with developing countries. Global solutions The vast majority of the countries covered by this report remain opposed to the proposal to create an intergovernmental UN tax body, which would grant developing countries a seat at the table when global tax standards are negotiated. A former champion – Norway – has fallen silent on the issue, but the European Parliament has remained progressive, and repeatedly called for an intergovernmental UN tax body to be established. Some governments might have thought that this issue would fall off the international political agenda, after a dramatic year in 2015, when developed countries managed to block a strong push from developing countries to get an intergovernmental UN tax body. However, the developing countries are showing no intention to let this issue go. During the UNCTAD 14 negotiations in July 2016, the discussion re-emerged and once again became a central point of disagreement between developed and developing countries. And in September 2016, Ecuador announced that this would be one of their key priorities when they take over the chairmanship of the G77 – a coalition of more than 130 developing countries – by January 2017. 36 • Survival of the Richest
Specific findings Survival of the Richest • 37
Page 1 and 2: Survival of the Richest Europe’s
Page 3 and 4: Contents Acronyms 4 Glossary 5 Exec
Page 5 and 6: Glossary Advance Pricing Agreement
Page 7 and 8: Glossary Tax treaty A legal agreeme
Page 9 and 10: Executive summary Global solutions
Page 11 and 12: Global developments 2016 Developing
Page 13 and 14: Global developments 2016 Box 1 Conc
Page 15 and 16: Europe’s role in upholding an unj
Page 17 and 18: Europe's role in upholding an unjus
Page 35: Report findings Financial and corpo
Page 39 and 40: Methodology for country rating syst
Page 41 and 42: AUSTRIA TRANSPARENCY REPORTING TAX
Page 43 and 44: FINLAND TRANSPARENCY REPORTING TAX
Page 45 and 46: ITALY TRANSPARENCY REPORTING TAX TR
Page 47 and 48: NORWAY TRANSPARENCY REPORTING TAX T
Page 49 and 50: SWEDEN TRANSPARENCY REPORTING TAX T
Page 51 and 52: Recommendations 7. All EU countries
Page 53 and 54: Austria Taxation Tax treaties Austr
Page 55 and 56: Belgium Taxation Tax treaties In to
Page 57 and 58: Belgium Global solutions Belgium di
Page 59 and 60: Czech Republic According to the 201
Page 61 and 62: Denmark Taxation Tax treaties Tax t
Page 63 and 64: Finland Ownership transparency Finl
Page 65 and 66: France “Of course, the fight agai
Page 67 and 68: France Taxation Tax treaties In tot
Page 69 and 70: Germany In July 2016, the European
Page 71 and 72: Ireland Furthermore, it should be n
Page 73 and 74: Italy “After our meeting in Milan
Page 75 and 76: Latvia “We still have a high inco
Page 77 and 78: Latvia Global solutions The Latvian
Page 79 and 80: Luxembourg One Luxembourg newspaper
Page 81 and 82: Netherlands One of the most crucial
Page 83 and 84: Norway Overview Once the Panama Pap
Page 85 and 86: Poland “It seems to us that those
Page 87 and 88:
Slovenia In May 2016, the Financial
Page 89 and 90:
Slovenia Global solutions Despite p
Page 91 and 92:
Spain Taxation Tax treaties The Spa
Page 93 and 94:
Sweden Taxation Global solutions Ta
Page 95 and 96:
United Kingdom Anti-Corruption Summ
Page 97 and 98:
United Kingdom There are broadly tw
Page 99 and 100:
References 34. Government of the Un
Page 101 and 102:
References 87. European Parliament.
Page 103 and 104:
References for the screening of thi
Page 105 and 106:
References legal-content/EN/TXT/?ur
Page 107 and 108:
References 255. Rekenhof (2011), In
Page 109 and 110:
References 321. Response to questio
Page 111 and 112:
References com/section/euro-finance
Page 113 and 114:
References 451. Irish Government, D
Page 115 and 116:
References da-savu-solidaritati 511
Page 117 and 118:
References 583. Tweede Kamer. (2016
Page 119 and 120:
References http://www.ft.com/cms/s/
Page 121 and 122:
References 720. Questionnaire answe
Page 123 and 124:
References Rules. Article published
show all

Survival of the Richest

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?