Taxpayers at the Centre of the Commission’s Action Plan on Taxation
Registration, reporting, verification, and dispute are the building blocks of the new Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery Strategy.
The document aims at reducing tax obstacles, promoting taxpayers’ rights, and helping Member States secure reliable tax revenues.
Participate in our Community of Practice on Responsible Tax to stay up-to-date with these policy developments
A fair, efficient, and sustainable taxation, can speed up the recovery efforts of the internal market from Covid-19. For this reason, the European Commission adopted on 15th July the Action Plan for Fair and Simple Taxation Supporting the Recovery Strategy. The document includes 25 initiatives to be developed between now and 2024, to reduce tax obstacles, promote taxpayers’ rights and help Member States secure reliable tax revenues.
Building on the achievement of the past in fighting tax fraud and promoting transparency, the Action Plan puts taxpayers at the center and sets out the following key measures on:
Registration
The Commission will propose to amend the VAT Directive to achieve a single EU VAT registration to make the process more efficient and ensure that taxpayers pay their fair share in 2022/2023. The Commission will also conduct a pilot project to assess which digital solution can be used and how to exploit better the available data.
Reporting
In 2020/2021, the Commission will prepare with Member States:
an initiative to facilitate and promote tax compliance for businesses based on greater cooperation and transparency among tax administrations
a legislative proposal to modernize VAT reporting obligations to ensure quicker, real-time, and detailed exchange of information on VAT intra-EU transactions
Verification
Verification maintain trust in the fairness of the tax system, ensuring a level playing field in taxation. For this reason, the Commission will propose to establish in Eurofisc – the network for the swift exchange, processing and analysis of targeted information on cross-border fraud between Member States - a true EU capability against VAT fraud in cross border transactions. This new platform will improve the verification of cross-border transactions and start the process to negotiate administrative cooperation agreements in VAT with relevant third countries.
Dispute
To avoid disputes between taxpayers and tax administrations, and to resolve them quickly the Commission will monitor the effectiveness of the dispute resolution mechanism directive and focus on dispute prevention.
By the end of the year, the the Commission will also publish the Action Plan for Business Taxation for the 21st century. The document will focus on the role of digitalization in reducing costs, the reporting burden on businesses and increase the efficiency.
To stay up to date on this EU policy development, members can follow CSR Europe’s work on Responsible Tax to scale up corporate tax transparency and establish responsible tax behaviour within companies.