So They Will Have To Come Clean...

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36013088
Bigg bl3ed1n deal! why don't the EU do something useful for once and get them to actually pay some tax as well as "commng clean" - they make the rules, they've shafted us for long enough so why won't they make some rules that could actually be helpful?

[EDDIE51]

Why do you say this will not be helpful?
Looks like a step in the right direction to me.

[ToraToraTora]

Ok we are still not going to pay any tax but we'll do as you ask and tell you how much we are not paying. Yes a tiny step in the right direction but they still won't be paying much tax will they?

[EDDIE51]

It stops them hiding behind the 'double taxation dodge' a company can claim they are paying the tax in a different EU country to avoid paying in another on the same income.

[TheChair]

"why don't the EU do something useful for once and get them to actually pay some tax". The EU don't have taxation powers.
From what I understand, you want to leave the EU because it has too much power over the UK, but you also want the EU to use powers that it doesn't have. You need to make up your mind

[Peter Pedant]

so they will have to come clean in the same sense that dodgy dave ( defended to the hilt by a certain 3T I recollect ) has come clean over the last seven days

( slowly reluctantly and incompletely but ho hum it is a start )

[ToraToraTora]

if they are being dishonest eddie that's an offence surely and they'll be fined and taxed. Nice thechair, deliberate misunderstanding by the Europhiles in evidence yet again well done. Good old PP usual bowlocks, I defended the right of everyone to legally avoid tax and their privacy, even yours PP.

[EDDIE51]

The EU does not levy taxes, that is down to individual countries.
But the current rules make it easy for a multi national company to hide where they pay tax and how much they pay. This proposal will make it harder to do that and also will force them to reveal if they have money hidden in 'tax havens' outside the EU. We can't start to get them to pay the correct tax until we actually know where and how much they pay.
I don't see how having a 'pro' or 'anti' EU viewpoint alters your understanding of that.

[Peter Pedant]

oh Eddie

pro Eu = tax harmonisation

anti EU set your own taxes

yeah yeah I know far too simple an analysis
what you need is lack of pressure to promote flight of capital to low tax areas by not making the transfer worf it and you do that by having the roughly same tax structure . Not identical as there is an on-cost of transfer . Flighty capital does no one any good....

try explaining that to 3T.... no I dont wanna
I would rather run onto red hot needles set at eye height .....

[ToraToraTora]

yes eddie but if it turns out that they should have paid tax in a certain country then even under the current system they'll have to pay and probably be fined.

[Old_Geezer]

It seems to me that if the rule were that you pay tax to the country's government whose citizens you got your income from, then the ambiguity is pretty much gone. All you'd need to know would be the company books for inspection; but I thought all companies were already obliged to give the taxmen access to that. Information about whether some other country is demanding tax, being of little interest/consequence to the country with the right to tax where the profit was made. Or is there a flaw in that ? Fail to pay full taxes on your wealth accumulation garnered from here, and you can't trade here.

[EDDIE51]

TTT you don't seem to get the point. At the moment one EU countries tax accounts are not accessible by another EU countries tax officials. So a multi national country can keep it's tax secret from everybody. This is an attempt to make multi national countries register the tax they pay and where they pay it, so it can be checked to make sure the amount due is actually being paid.

[Old_Geezer]

Can a tax office not see what the company claims to pay in tax elsewhere from their books, and if interested (unsure why they would be since some other country's tax should have no bearing on one's own country) ask the relevant country to confirm ? If not, then that is more a case of being a scandal now that should never have arisen, and been corrected years ago, rather than a great benefit introduced.

[EDDIE51]

They can look at the books and they may say for example that Euro 3 million was paid in Italy but the rest of the EU can not check the Italian tax accounts as they are private to Italy. This proposal is to establish a central data base of the tax paid by multi nationals and allow it to be checked by other countries tax officials.

[Old_Geezer]

Ideally they ought not need to check the accounts themselves but put in a question/data request for the other country's tax office to confirm.

But it still seems to me that the rules are wrong if the, say, UK, calculates it is owed £xM and needs to know what was paid in Italy. Italian commerce not being the concern of others. Let the company discuss the Italian tax demand with the Italian tax authority, and let the UK demand it's entitlement as a separate unrelated issue.