If the figures from a recent EU survey are to be believed despite an overwhelming vote in favour of Brexit, 70% of Brits want more EU intervention on tax fraud.
For over forty years the European Union has carried out twice yearly Eurobarometer surveys. The most recent was carried out earlier this year in April. 28,000 people across the 28 member states were polled on a variety of subjects. The results of the surveys help the EU identify priorities for its policy and legislative activity. This latest poll shows that tax fraud was identified by respondents to the survey as the third most important priority for the EU, after terrorism and unemployment.
Overall at an EU level 75% of people wanted the EU to intervene more, the UK was slightly lower at 70% compared to 69% in Ireland and only 52% of Austrians thought there should be more intervention. Portugal (91%) and Spain (89%) emerged as the countries keenest for the EU to intervene more than at present.
In the UK, the proportion who wanted the EU to intervene less was 9% and in Ireland it was 4%. In contrast, 17% of people in Greece said they thought the EU should do less than is currently the case to tackle tax fraud, the only country where this score was in double figures. Over a third of Austrians (37%) thought efforts should remain as they are.
When you break down the figures the number of respondents for each member state is just 1,000 and as you’ll be only too well aware media hype on the issue of tax evasion may well have impacted on the responses given. Ironic really when you consider that there was a significant vote to exit the EU, yet according to these figures it appears the UK, or at least 700 Britons, want the EU to intervene more when it comes to tax fraud.
The EU claims it is adopting ambitious and concrete proposals to increase tax transparency and combat tax avoidance, calling for the automatic exchange of tax rulings between member states and public country-by-country reporting for multinationals, together with a common definition of tax havens and strong and concrete sanctions.
The official EU position is that it will continue to push member states to strengthen their tax policies, to close loopholes and to improve coordination at the EU and international level.
Following the LuxLeaks scandal MEPs set up two special committees on tax rulings. In its final report, which MEPs adopted in July 2016, the second special committee called for an EU register of beneficial owners of companies, a tax heavens blacklist and action against the misuse of patent box regimes.
The Panama papers inquiry committee is start its work this autumn to assess how the European Commission and member states are fighting money laundering and tax evasion. This autumn MEPs will also start working on the public transparency rules for multinationals. Given Brexit it’ll be interesting to see how engaged UK MEPs and our government are in influencing the development of any EU wide legislation.
