EU Commission is bashing 6 EU countries for aggressive tax planning regimes...

[challenge]

Fighting tax evasion and aggressive tax planning is essential to maintain sound public finances and avoid distortion of competition between firms and between Member States.
Certain features of some Member States’ tax systems (i.e. Ireland, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands), may be used by companies that engage in aggressive tax planning.
Aggressive tax planning practices in one Member State, have spillover effects, both on other companies and on other Member States, including tax revenue losses and distortions of the playing field among companies.
Member States, whose tax base is eroded, have to raise revenue from other taxes or have lower revenues for growth-enhancing reforms, redistribution and investment.

There we go, latest package of boring over-bloated BS from EU commission is out. The resume is here:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf..._semester_communicationcountry_reports_en.pdf

You can find specific details on each country report here:
2020 European Semester: Country Reports

As usual I love these reports and want to thank the EU commission's trainees for their precious work
e.g. the chart below is pretty much spot on, they just put the wrong title on it, clearly a noob trainee mistake.
You should read it as Best Places To Live or Do Business
or Shut up and Just Follow The Money
or let's blame Malta & Ireland so nobody's gonna see who's on top

 

[KJK]

essential to maintain sound public finances and avoid distortion of competition between firms and between Member States.

Double standards much?

So let me get this straight, the Commission claims these countries can "distort competition between firms and between member states". How do these countries supposedly do it? By offering good business environment to companies and people tired of their home countries. Sounds more like competition to me - a country sucks so people will vote with their feet. So how can creating/maintaining competition distort competition?

Ireland, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Hungary, Malta and the Netherlands - I see nothing wrong with these countries and their set-ups. Well maybe except Hungary and Malta which are a special case and are politically fucked up...

Actually if I were to make a wild prediction, I think UK can become a similar "semi-offshore" destination after brexit, keeping some benefits from previous membership while not having to listen to such commissions and declarations.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

What’s the deal with Luxembourg? Can it make sense for smaller sized businesses?

 

[Artemis Eleutheria]

Double standards much?

So let me get this straight, the Commission claims these countries can "distort competition between firms and between member states".

I see a typo ... they wrote "distort" where they meant "introduce"

 

[HSharpe]

There we go, latest package of boring over-bloated BS from EU commission is out. The resume is here:
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/inf..._semester_communicationcountry_reports_en.pdf

You can find specific details on each country report here:
2020 European Semester: Country Reports

As usual I love these reports and want to thank the EU commission's trainees for their precious work
e.g. the chart below is pretty much spot on, they just put the wrong title on it, clearly a noob trainee mistake.
You should read it as Best Places To Live or Do Business
or Shut up and Just Follow The Money
or let's blame Malta & Ireland so nobody's gonna see who's on top

View attachment 1042

Ireland is not publishing number at the same time when its the second-largest fund jurisdiction in the world.

What’s the deal with Luxembourg? Can it make sense for smaller sized businesses?

The average wage is 4000 for the cleaning lady

 

[hernanday]

"Fighting tax evasion and aggressive tax planning is essential to maintain sound public finances and avoid distortion of competition between firms and between Member States. "

Notice how they are lumping in tax planning with evasion, soon they will simply outlaw good tax planning.


Wouldn't the easiest way to avoid distortion of competition between firms and member states, would be for high tax member states to adopt low tax regimes to take away the incentive to go to low tax member states?

"Member States, whose tax base is eroded, have to raise revenue from other taxes or have lower revenues for growth-enhancing reforms, redistribution and investment. "

Given that there are entire civilized nations who run on low taxes, I don't believe that low taxation is a boogey man destroyer of society.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

They are already trying to outlaw good tax planning. Now your advisors have to inform the tax office of how you’re trying save taxes. Even if you just ask for advice.

Also, the EU is socialist. If you look at everything they do in their public communication, you will see that they firmly believe that high taxes = prosperity. They had a propaganda computer game where the solution to every problem was to raise taxes and then use that to build schools, roads, etc. Private initiative didn’t exist. Everything had to be provided by the government. The EU spends more on PR than what Coca Cola spends globally. It’s insane.

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Found it - the game is called Taxlandia:
https://europa.eu/taxedu/taxlandia_en
And here’s a review:
https://fee.org/articles/the-eus-taxlandia-game-is-propaganda-at-its-finest/

 

[hernanday]

They are already trying to outlaw good tax planning. Now your advisors have to inform the tax office of how you’re trying save taxes. Even if you just ask for advice.

Also, the EU is socialist. If you look at everything they do in their public communication, you will see that they firmly believe that high taxes = prosperity. They had a propaganda computer game where the solution to every problem was to raise taxes and then use that to build schools, roads, etc. Private initiative didn’t exist. Everything had to be provided by the government. The EU spends more on PR than what Coca Cola spends globally. It’s insane.

The messed up part is, if EU used all that money to fund businesses, to expand trade, they'd likely not be stuck in the rut they are in.

 

[challenge]

I'm the most calm guy around but I get mad when I hear about EU administration.
I had the "pleasure" to work with a few of them....
They are just a bunch of 60000 unproductive parasites. Many of them never worked in their life. They live in their own cozy philosophical bubble.
They allotted 7% of the whole EU budget just to pay for their expenses and all of those unnecessary buildings they own. You can be sure they'll find every possible way to fund this.

I know a few of them, they had crooked yellow teeth and didn't want to spend their money to fix them. And I'm talking about wealthy people not poor!
After they got into EU Parliament they magically had invisible tooth braces, whitening, and all sorts of health checks done... dozens of thousands of expenses each, "free"... we all know what free means... they'll make me pay for that.
Once they get there they build this nice honest PR image of themselves. They indoctrinate their assistants like EU is this mythological place, the higher most noble philanthropic administration in the world. You see their eyes get wet when they see that flag... you should hear them talk from 5 star luxury hotel suites (fully refunded), about how with their intervention they're saving thousands of people from poverty... while sipping champagne. Like without EU people would die...
You should see the all the BS supporting activities that everyday get funded to keep EU parliament great... radios, blogs, meetings, conferences, all covered by eu budget.
I could say the same for the buildings, I know a business that worked on renovating them, there were no expense spared even on small jobs.
At a point they had a plan of demolishing and rebuilding the main Brussels building...

They spend more money to keep themselves alive than what they spend on education and research projects. Now tell me how that's fair.
I hate the way that shitty blue flag it's forced over the national flags. I hate when EU laws are forced as superior over good common sense national laws.
I like European countries, I like different languages, different customs, I hate a flat European Union in the socialistic way it's being imposed on us.
EU is just a medieval feudal system. I know people elbowing trying to get into the EU club!

 

[JustAnotherNomad]

Yes, I recently talked to an EU politician as well. And he was one of the “conservative”, “free-market” guys.
He said he has often thought about quitting, but it’s just so comfortable because you get to spend other people’s money. We met at a conference and he said he booked his flight a week in advance, so it was expensive.
“I’m sure it would have been much cheaper if I had booked it a couple weeks ago... But you know, it’s not my money, so that’s just what we do,” he shrugged.
He also said he loves the Power to make things happen that I could never dream about, just because he knows the right people. “You must be on the inside, you must know how the system works.”
He bragged that he arranged a meeting between two people by taking his “friend” to a football match and some other guy sitting next to them by chance. And then he went to get something to eat, so those two guys could talk.
“You know, I’m very discreet.”
I have no idea why he told me all that, he didn’t even know me and he didn’t seem drunk. My best guess is that these people aren’t even afraid of anyone. They are the absolutely worst parasites.
And like you said, most of them have never worked a day in their life. And I know political science students and other EU interns who get absolutely brainwashed with this bulls**t. They firmly believe that if the EU didn’t exist, there would be war and starvation all over Europe. I once was on a date with such a girl and I had to cut it short because it was driving me mad.

 

[countryfree]

Funny when Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Hungary are among the best managed countries in the EU, with small deficits and shrinking debts. Maybe the EU wants all its members to follow the lead of Greece, Italy and France, going to bankruptcy.

 

[Martin Everson]

Notice how they are lumping in tax planning with evasion, soon they will simply outlaw good tax planning.

Soon tax harmonization across EU will come and will solve that issue once and for all . If the EU wants a level playing field then that is the solution they are planning for period!!! It will start with tax rates for certain services or goods across EU and eventually spiral into a EU common tax policy. Oh and if anyone thinks this will never happen then EU Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) will make sure it does......get out of EU while you can .

EU: Full tax harmonisation under the new Von der Leyen Commission?

 

[kkein]

I'm the most calm guy around but I get mad when I hear about EU administration.
I had the "pleasure" to work with a few of them....
They are just a bunch of 60000 unproductive parasites. Many of them never worked in their life. They live in their own cozy philosophical bubble.
They allotted 7% of the whole EU budget just to pay for their expenses and all of those unnecessary buildings they own. You can be sure they'll find every possible way to fund this.

I know a few of them, they had crooked yellow teeth and didn't want to spend their money to fix them. And I'm talking about wealthy people not poor!
After they got into EU Parliament they magically had invisible tooth braces, whitening, and all sorts of health checks done... dozens of thousands of expenses each, "free"... we all know what free means... they'll make me pay for that.
Once they get there they build this nice honest PR image of themselves. They indoctrinate their assistants like EU is this mythological place, the higher most noble philanthropic administration in the world. You see their eyes get wet when they see that flag... you should hear them talk from 5 star luxury hotel suites (fully refunded), about how with their intervention they're saving thousands of people from poverty... while sipping champagne. Like without EU people would die...
You should see the all the BS supporting activities that everyday get funded to keep EU parliament great... radios, blogs, meetings, conferences, all covered by eu budget.
I could say the same for the buildings, I know a business that worked on renovating them, there were no expense spared even on small jobs.
At a point they had a plan of demolishing and rebuilding the main Brussels building...

They spend more money to keep themselves alive than what they spend on education and research projects. Now tell me how that's fair.
I hate the way that shitty blue flag it's forced over the national flags. I hate when EU laws are forced as superior over good common sense national laws.
I like European countries, I like different languages, different customs, I hate a flat European Union in the socialistic way it's being imposed on us.
EU is just a medieval feudal system. I know people elbowing trying to get into the EU club!

Well, if you are a politician and you suck, you are incompetent, you cannot do your job, you got there simply because of the worst politics, you don't even know how to earn your money from lobbies, leave alone want to, what do you do? You spend taxpayers money! And you give some of these money to your voters, so that they keep voting you.

 

[challenge]

The QMV ffs
I don't want any more harmonization full stop. I don't think things could/will be harmonized in a fair way.
Listen many of us know where things are going and it's not a conspiration. Tax harmonization is only a small part of it.

They already (quietly) created their own police years ago. We already had Interpol, Europol, yet they felt the need for a more powerful one... Eurogendfor military police.
It has full immunity on everything, from kills to damages. By EU law not a single court of justice can access their premises nor their archives, cannot wiretap them, cannot jail not even accuse them if they do something bad...
They're above the national laws. The motto is "Lex Paciferat", enough to be scared of for years... just give a read to their Treaty here till the end: link to TREATY OF VELSEN ).
They are experts in anti-riot tactics, and they can supervise the local country police even on crime cases.

Why would the EU need a military police specialized in anti-riot, restoring security and public order if the local polices can already do that?

Substitution

• Local Police has to be totally replaced because they do not exist or the existing structure is not organised, able or reliable to perform its functions. It will be necessary to re-establish from scratch a new Local Police system.
• Local Police can be maintained – The existing Local Police will have to be submitted to vetting and re-training processes and, once new personnel has been recruited and trained, will then progressively take over full responsibility for police functions. The international police presence will have primacy over the Local Police in performing police functions, and will retain the responsibility in carrying out high profile investigations.

I mean it's not like I'm making this up, you can find it on their website EUROGENDFOR
_______

Europe is not the USA, we are too different.
I know there are forces in the EU parliament trying to realize their wet dream against people's will.
IMHO is a flawed dream, you can be sure they'll do anything to make it happen.
But I have the feeling it's not going to end well and people are willing to die fighting against this.

 

[kkein]

But I have the feeling it's not going to end well and people are willing to die fighting against this.

I suspect that France, at the very least, the moment EU goes against what people want, will be set on fire and sword. There's a good tradition there, even recently revamped.

 

[Tax Cow]

Considering the EU's desperation to collect more tax from corporations...
why, with their single brain cell, do they think that going after the corporate income, and not turnover, is the right approach?

Only takes a well-paid accountant and an international tax consultant to "Photoshop" a billion-dollar business into a loss-maker who happens to not owe any CIT.

 

[AlbanyJames]

Maybe the EU banks and by association the EU crumbles next couple years and all the countries get hungry. They stop these crazy measures and actually start fighting for foreign dollars to come to them... wishfull thinking I guess ?

 

[Martin Everson]

Unfortunately all euro-zone members of EU are trapped. Their central banks are just ornaments to a distant past now they gave all power to ECB via adopting the Euro. EU countries are trapped like a prostitute with her pimp. If they get ideas or step out of line they will get a back hand slap from the pimp (EU).

Yes everybody can see where the EU is going. However no one can do anything about the direction of travel of events. The "Ever Close Union" is enshrined in the EU officials minds.