| 07 September 2008
EU Tax Commissioner Laszlo Kovacs seems to have given in to pressure to back
away from the Common Consolidated Company Tax Base (CCCTB), perhaps while the
French lean on the Irish to have another bite at the Lisbon cherry.
Kovacs told a meeting of the International Fiscal Association in Brussels last
week that work on the CCCTB is not complete: "I should like to take this
opportunity to clarify that I would rather present a perfectly elaborated and
well justified product at the appropriate time than present an incomplete one
just to meet an artificial deadline".
The supposed - but illusory - threat to Irish tax independence was one of the
arguments used by the Irish antis to derail the country's approval of the Lisbon
Treaty in a referendum.
Irish accountancy bodies are particularly vociferous against the CCCTB, one
hopes not because it would cost them fee income when the presentation of profit
and loss accounts becomes harmonized across Europe.
How is it possible to defend the patchwork of 28 sets of stupefyingly complex
rules which international companies have to contend with in Europe? Only a madman
(or an accountant) could want such a system. Of course this one wasn't invented
by anyone. It's just a pity that Napoleon didn't have a go at cross-border accounting,
or we might have a more sensible system.
As to the argument that the CCCTB is a Trojan Horse for the harmonization of
tax rates; this is just puerile. Of course, it is true that corporate tax rates
will be harmonized - but down to zero, and that will happen in the next twenty
years. But that's another story.
You have been reading an entry on the following blog:
Jeremy Hetherington-Gore Unleashed
Jeremy tackles the difficult issues head on!
Contact: jeremy@lowtax.net
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