EPP Group to Finance Ministers: stop blocking harmonised tax base

European Parliament first EU Institution to adopt concrete plan to tax digital giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon

"National Finance Ministers cannot ignore that a majority of citizens wants to tackle the problem of multi-national companies paying almost no tax. Finance Ministers should stop blocking the plans to harmonise the Corporate Tax Base", said Alain Lamassoure MEP and Markus Ferber MEP today ahead of Parliament's vote on the so-called Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB).

MEPs also wrote new digital taxing rules into the draft law which originally did not address the problem of digital tech giants such as Google, Facebook and Amazon. "Without Europe-wide rules on how to tax digital companies, we will never have fairness in corporate tax. The principle of taxing companies where the value is created must also apply to the digital economy", said Lamassoure and Ferber.

Tax rates must be decided by Member States, but the corporate tax base should be the same all over Europe. A Lamassoure MEP and M Ferber MEP

"We do not want to unitise corporate tax rates, but we want to harmonise what is taxed and where we tax. Tax rates must be decided by Member States, but the corporate tax base should be the same all over Europe", explained Lamassoure and Ferber. Lamassoure and Ferber are respectively Parliament’s Rapporteur and the EPP Group's Shadow Rapporteur on the two parts of the draft law which would fundamentally change how companies are taxed all over Europe.

Parliament debates the law proposal this afternoon and votes on it tomorrow, Thursday. This increases the pressure on national Finance Ministers who last time debated the topic in June 2017 inconclusively and have not come back to it since. The European Commission is expected to make another formal law proposal for a digital tax on 21 March.