Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 of 22 March 2021

Ce que fait l'acte

to improve the functioning of the existing provisions of Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the Council adopts the act after consulting the European Parliament but without being obliged to follow its opinion. BACKGROUND: as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Member States need sufficient tax revenue to finance their considerable efforts, while ensuring that the most vulnerable groups do not bear the burden of increasing such revenue. To achieve this, fair taxation, based on rules that ensure that everyone pays their fair share, while allowing taxpayers, be they businesses or citizens, to comply easily with the rules, is essential. In the past years, the EU has focused its efforts on tackling tax fraud, tax evasion and tax avoidance and boosting transparency. While major improvements have been made in particular in the field of exchange of information, the evaluation of the application of Council Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation6 showed that there is still a need to improve existing provisions that relate to all forms of exchanges of information and administrative cooperation. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted, under a special legislative procedure (Parliament’s consultation), the report by Sven GIEGOLD (Greens/EFA, DE) on the proposal for a Council directive amending Council Directive 2011/16/EU on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation. As a reminder, the proposed revision of the Administrative Cooperation Directive provides that Member States will automatically exchange information on the income generated by sellers on digital platforms. It also suggests a series of adjustments to the Directive, including provisions on joint audits between tax authorities, an explicit reference to the possibility for a Member State to make group requests to another Member State or clarification of the concept of foreseeable relevance. The committee responsible recommended that the European Parliament approve the Commission proposal subject to amendments. The requested authority should provide information as soon as possible and no later than three months (instead of six months) from the date of receipt of the request. Before 1 January 2023, the Commission should submit a report that provides an overview and an assessment of the statistics and information received on a country-by-country basis, on issues such as the administrative and other relevant costs and benefits, including incremental tax revenues and of exchanges of information on request. Scope of the automatic and compulsory exchange of information The competent authority of each Member State should, by automatic exchange, communicate to the competent authority of any other Member State all information that is available or could reasonably be made available concerning residents in that other Member State, on the following specific categories of income and capital as they are to be understood under the national legislation of the Member State which communicates the information. The competent authority should not negotiate and agree new…