Financial Transparency Coalition

The EU Savings Tax Directive (EUSTD) has been the EU’s flagship transparency initiative since its introduction in 2003, and we have written about it on many occasions. It complements another EU transparency scheme called the Directive on Administrative Co-operation, which was beefed up this week, as the Wall St. Journal reported:

“European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday on a far-reaching crackdown on tax evasion that will bring the bloc’s standards on par with global rules by 2017, although Austria is getting an extra year to build up a data-exchange system with its banks.”

The DAC currently covers only EU Member states, while the EUSTD is extended by agreement...

The Tax Justice Network has blogged repeatedly on the thoroughly toxic and dangerous tax deals that Switzerland has signed with Germany and the UK and others and is seeking to expand as a model to other countries. We have demonstrated on several occasions that the deals - which are supposed to apply withholding taxes on secret assets, in exchange for continued anonymity - are all but worthless, from a technical point of view (that is, they are absolutely riddled with loopholes, and will raise only a fraction of the promised sums; we have sent our detailed analysis to tax...

The European Parliament voted through a resolution calling for measures against tax evasion. The resolution was passed with an overwhelming 538 votes in favour, and only 73 against and 32 abstentions. The resolution of 19 April goes far in echoing Eurodad’s demand in calling for Automatic Information Exchange (AIE), Country-By-Country Reporting (CBCR), a mandatory Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCBT) amongst other useful suggestions.

According to this article, Luxembourgian Finance Minister Luc Frieden has indicated to the European Union's Council of Finance Ministers (EcoFin) that the Grand Duchy is no longer opposed to automatic information exchange through the EU's savings tax directive (STD). If this is the case, we have cause for celebration, though we still don't know whether Austria will also fall into line and cooperate. The EU's STD is currently under review. The review process is considering broadening the directive's scope to include a wider range of incomes (it currently...