#Luxleaks: Only more collaboration between states can prevent future LuxLeaks and Panama Papers revelations

“No ground-breaking new findings”. This is the conclusion of the European Parliament’s special tax committee which was set up in February 2015 after the so-called LuxLeaks revelations.

Danuta Hübner MEP, EPP Group negotiator of the final report of the special tax committee and former European Commissioner, said: “As long as every member state makes its own tax policy independently there will be loopholes and mismatches between national tax systems. Only more collaboration between states can prevent future LuxLeaks and Panama Papers revelations. We knew this and the work of the special committee has confirmed this.

"We do not want to harmonize corporate tax rates, but what is taxed and where it is taxed."

For the EPP Group, the key measure to tackle the problem of loopholes used by companies to avoid paying taxes is to harmonize the rules on what is taxed, the so-called Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base. “We do not want to harmonize corporate tax rates, but what is taxed and where it is taxed. The EPP Group wants to enforce the principle that taxes must be paid where value is created,” Hübner stressed.

But future measures to fight tax evasion by companies must not hamper legitimate business. “The major difference between the EPP Group and other political Groups in the special committee was that the others had the generalized suspicion that businesses’ main activity is to trick the state. The EPP Group wants to protect those law-abiding companies who pay their taxes,” Hübner said.