The Members of the Special committee on TAX III and Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, participates in the public hearing on “Cum Ex scandal; financial crime and the loopholes in the current legal framework, at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

fight against tax fraud and evasion (T)

public hearing

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

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

Public hearing on “Cum Ex scandal; financial crime and the loopholes in the current legal framework”: extracts from the special committee on TAX III and ECON Committee

SOUNDBITE (EN) Petr JEŽEK (ALDE,CZ), Chair of TAX, The purpose of this hearing is to examine the recent revelation of the Cum Ex files which has shown that over 55 billion euros have been defrauded though various schemes. This hearing will aim to examine the existing loopholes allowing for these situations, as well as possible ways to improve administrative cooperation between the Member States regarding tax matters.

SOUNDBITE (English), Gerhard SCHICK, Cum-Ex inquiry of the Bundestag/ German Parliament , (video conference) A crucial information to uncover the Cum Ex scandal, just like other all the other big tax scandals, like Panama papers and Lux leaks, were provided to the authorities and prosecutors by the whistle-blowers. This shows us how important these brave people are in fight against crime. In order to support and encourage people to make information about criminal activities available to competent authorities or the public, we need much better whistle-blower protection provisions. Your colleagues in the JURI committee are fighting for that. Unfortunately, Germany, of all countries, is now arguing to exempt accountants, tax advisors and officials from the best possible protection. That is unacceptable and makes me wonder on which side they are on.

SOUNDBITE (German), Christoph SPENGEL, ZEW Research Associate and the Chair of Business Administration and Taxation II at the University of Mannheim, Now what we need is a functioning governance by the financial authorities trying to detect tax fraud. We need an EU-wide information exchange system set up to counter tax fraud. Thirdly, we need further powers for the EU-wide law reinforcement authorities and we should be thinking about how to make the European capital markets better, because these transactions often are carried out through a number of different countries.

SOUNDBITE (German), Oliver SCHR&#214;M, &#160;Journalist, chairman of the German association of investigative journalists, In an undercover operation we have organised over a period of months we found out that these tax driven transactions are still possible and are still happening. According to the documents we have, traders have been targeting the following European countries: France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Finland, Poland, the Czech Republic. So these countries today, even as we speak, are seeing continuing scams on the tax take.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ana GOMES (S&amp;D, PT), If Germany forbid this system in 2012, why did it not inform other member states? Why did it not alert the supervision authorities at the European and at the national level?

SOUNDBITE (German), Oliver SCHR&Ouml;M, Journalist, chairman of the German association of investigative journalists,  (Spanish authorities) they sent the prosecutor&rsquo;s questions back to the bank, rather than answering them and saying it was the German prosecutor that had to have these answered. So there are two sides responsible for that, sometimes the information was passed on and sometimes the information didn&rsquo;t get provided for whatever reason.