Meeting of the Special Committee on Tax Rulings (TAXE) on the Report of the special committee on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect during the EP plenary session in Strasbourg. Statements by Elisa FERREIRA (S&amp;D,PT) and Michael THEURER (ALDE,DE)

Strasbourg

meeting

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

HÜBNER, Danuta Maria (EPP, PL)

fight against tax fraud and evasion (T)

DE MASI, Fabio (GUE/NGL, DE)

THEURER, Michael (ALDE, DE)

Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect

FERREIRA, Elisa (S&D, PT, EC)

MESSERSCHMIDT, Morten (ECR, DK)

Report of the special committee on tax rulings and other measures similar in nature or effect: extracts from the report by Elisa FERREIRA (S&D, PT) and Michael THEURER (ALDE, DE) at the Special Committee on Tax Rulings

SOUNDBITE (French), Alain LAMASSOURE (EPP, FR), Chair of the TAXE special committee, "We will holding a hearing one after the other, first the European Commission President and then the Commissioner Moscovici, in a time slot of 1,5 hours, and later on the same day the Commissioner Vestager."

SOUNDBITE (English), Elisa FERREIRA (S&amp;D, PT), rapporteur, "It is also unfair that from the whole tax burden some most powerful enterprises pay a very small share of this burden, which means that the majority of that burden falls on citizens, small and medium enterprises. In particular in times of acute economic crisis this level of unfairness becomes particularly unbearable and the Union cannot ignore the issue of tax fairness and fair competition any longer."

SOUNDBITE (English), Elisa FERREIRA (S&amp;D, PT), "There is the strong conviction that only this Parliament as the elective representative of European citizens can enhance the political duty to put the adequate and legitimate pressure on Commission and in particular pressure on the Council."

SOUNDBITE (English), Elisa FERREIRA (S&amp;D, PT), "It became evident that bagger thy neighbour tax aggressive and harmful practices by Member states are today wide spread throughout the EU, build on secrecy and extreme creative taxation mechanisms. Several European Union rules such as the duty of mutual information and cooperation are violated every day in the Union."

SOUNDBITE (German), Michael THEURER (ALDE, DE), rapporteur, "All these pieces of information accumulated in new evidence to show that the information revealed by 'lux leaks' that was information that was known to the Finance ministers and had been for many years and ECOFIN had raised these issues however it had not so far trickled up into the inter-governmental structure. "

SOUNDBITE (German), Michael THEURER (ALDE, DE), "I think it is completely unacceptable that those companies and including those multi-internationals refused or declined the invitation to come to the European Parliament and therefore I would like to point out and to include this in the draft as well that this disregard is utterly unacceptable. I like to pass this message on to the Conference of Presidents of the Parliament to see how we could do this contempt of the Parliament, for example we could add these names to a list which would restrict their lobbying activities."

SOUNDBITE (German), Michael THEURER (ALDE, DE), "We made a suggestion for example to ensure that all profits should be taxed at least once in the European Union."

SOUNDBITE (English), Danuta Maria H&#220;BNER (EPP, PL), shadow rapporteur , "We could identify what are those fields and issues that are today dealt with using tax rulings. And see and which of them should or could be included in a main body of tax law, in a first level of tax law without being left for interpretation."

SOUNDBITE (English), Fabio DE MASI (GUE/NGL, DE), shadow rapporteur , "I find it irritating that the European Commission who should support this investigations and a letter a few days ago said it won't provide these protocols of the code of conduct group due to resistance from the Member states, I think that the European Commission has to perform a different role."

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), shadow rapporteur , "We are looking at a phenomena that is in order of magnitude as big as health care spending in Europe and that is not a small thing, so that should probably be said. It's not just about ruling but all sorts of tools that companies are using. I mean it would at a bit to a sense to urgency."

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), "There are so many lawyers, bankers, other kind of inter-med-diaries that are involved there and as Fabio said, banks play a huge role there and should and that is my next point, they should also face sanctions that bite, basically right now, if you try to cheat basically the worst case is that you pay what you should have paid, so there is only upside if you look from a business perspective. Well there should be huge down side to this - if you try to cheat you may end to paying more than what you have tried to avoid in the first place. "