Eurocommissaris Semeta: EU krijgt meest uitgebreide informatiesysteem ter wereld (en)

BRUSSELS - The European Commission has said the EU is building "the most comprehensive information exchange system in the world" to combat tax evasion.

Algirdas Semeta - the Lithuanian commissioner behind a series of new tax laws - made the claim in Brussels on Wednesday (12 June).

He told press his new regime goes further than recent US legislation - the Fatca law, which says foreign banks can lose their US licence if they do not share information on US account holders.

"The EU system will become even broader than the US system," he noted.

Semeta spoke after tabling a new bill, an amended version of the EU's existing Administrative Co-operation Directive (ACD).

The old ACD forces EU countries to share information on non-resident's employment income, director's fees, life insurance products, pensions and real estate assets.

But it contains a loophole, saying data can be withheld if it is not easily "available."

The new-model ACD says the "availability" clause should be reviewed in 2017.

It also calls for information sharing on income from "dividends, capital gains, other financial income and [on] account balances" from January 2015 even if it is not readily available.

Semeta is at the same time trying to get EU countries to adopt his amended Savings Tax Directive.

Under the old savings law, EU countries tell each other how much interest non-residents earn on bank deposits.

But they do not share data on interest arising from money held in investment funds, pensions, innovative financial instruments, trusts or foundations.

Meanwhile, two EU banking centres - Austria and Luxembourg - are exempt.

Semeta said the amended law closes the loopholes and will be adopted by the end of year in line with a promise by EU leaders in May.

"Luxembourg and Austria have to stick to the instructions of the heads of state," he said.

He added there is "new momentum" in EU capitals to also adopt a third proposal - the Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB) law.

Corporate tax avoidance - creating structures which are perfectly legal, but which are designed to avoid paying levies in high-tax countries - costs EU treasuries €150 billion a year.

But Semeta said "if we implement the CCCTB at EU level, then the problem of transfer pricing - where companies shift profits from one country to another - would simply disappear from the European Union."

Independent experts welcome the new model savings tax law.

Mark Morris, a tax specialist at the Baker & McKenzie law firm, said it is unique because it "pierces" the secrecy of "untaxed entities and legal arrangements."

Entities such as trusts and foundations obscure the real owner of the money to avoid tax.

But Semeta's law says if the real owner cannot be identified, then the tax and information-sharing burden falls on whoever is entitled to income from the entity, whoever contributed money to set it up, or whoever manages it on the owner's behalf.

It also obliges entities to declare money in overseas jurisdictions, such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

"No previous tax law in the world since the time of the crusaders [Medieval times] had been able to pierce these structures because the beneficial owner is always hidden," he said.

John Christensen - the British chief of the Tax Justice Network (TJN), an NGO - called the new savings law "a major step forward in the battle against tax evasion."

He noted the EU information exchange model is "multilateral" in nature, but the US' Fatca law is "unilateral" and has less scope for adoption at international level.

"We would like to see the EU approach become the basis for a global standard," he said.

Morris and another TJN analyst, Markus Meinzer, questioned the value of the new ACD, however.

Morris said it will be "toothless" unless it contains the same provisions on trusts and foundations as the savings tax bill.

Meinzer asked: "Who would be responsible for collecting the information? How do you treat dividends paid by a trust, for instance? How do you treat capital gains paid by a trust to a company based in the British Virgin Islands [a UK protectorate in the Caribbean[?"

He added: "If these questions aren't addressed, then this proposal is doomed to be easily circumvented."