Luxembourg PM rejects EU single tax plans
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has criticized the European Union’s single tax plans, arguing that it should be left to member states to decide.
“To say that everyone within the European Union must move toward a single tax policy with the same tax rate, that I’m against,” Belgian daily L’Echo quoted Bettel as saying on Wednesday.
“This competence belongs to the member states…. The debate isn’t about giving the same fiscal conditions to all, but to know who is doing what,” he said.
Bettel also defended the “tax ruling” system practiced by Luxembourg, suggesting that he would add to the tax team staff in the country “due to the volume of work” involved.
As part of his harmonization scheme, Jean-Claude Juncker, Bettel’s predecessor and new European Commission president, has asked economic affairs commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, to make plans to create an EU-wide automatic exchange of information on tax arrangements.
The comments by Bettel come just days after leaders at a G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, approved plans to fight tax evasion, including regulations requiring further transparency on tax rulings.
The European Parliament has scheduled a confidence vote next week for Juncker, who attended the summit after eurosceptics made a motion about Luxembourg’s tax breaks for global firms.
