Progress report on anti-evasion, anti-avoidance

EU - Progress report on anti-evasion, anti-avoidance actions

December 5: The European Commission today issued a report on progress in its efforts to address tax fraud and evasion.
Today’s EC report lists the following initiatives or actions taken in 2013 in an effort to counter tax evasion and avoidance:

1. Expanding the automatic exchange of information widely within the EU
2. Tightening EU corporate tax rules against aggressive tax planning
3. Negotiating with neighbouring countries for greater transparency
4. Establishing a platform on tax good governance
5. Launching the debate on digital taxation
6. Agreeing new instruments to better fight value added tax (VAT) fraud
7. Proposing new standard VAT form to improve tax compliance
8. Publishing a new report on VAT gap in EU
9. Preventing harmful tax competition
10. Introducing more corporate transparency

The EC release also states that the ODCD’s base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) action plan complements EU measures to tackle aggressive tax planning, and the BEPS action plan addresses issues that can only be effectively dealt with at international level. The EU’s experience in various areas covered by BEPS (such as transfer pricing and tackling hybrid mismatches), as well as the work of an EC group on digital taxation will aid in the OECD implementation of the action plan.