Mitchell, B. (2014) “Solving tax avoidance will not cure the Eurozone of stagnation“, Bill Mitchell Blog, 15 Δεκεμβρίου.
There was an article in the French-language edition of Huffington Post last last week (December 10, 2014) – Sans Europe fiscale, le projet européen est condamné (Without taxes, the European project is doomed) – written by the President of the French Socialist delegation in the European Parliament, Pervenche Berès. Her committee role as a member of the EP includes the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affaris. She has been active in the debate over tax avoidance in the Parliament. Her substantive claim in the article is that the European Project, by which she includes retention of the Eurozone, will fail unless national governments work out how to raise more taxes to balance their fiscal positions. The article qualifies for inclusion in my – Friends list this – series. Although I accept it could be reasonably argued that the French socialists gave up any pretensions to progressive agendas some time ago and could reasonably be included among the groups we would consider to be neo-liberal. But that issue, while important, is not the topic of this blog. The argument put by the French politician is as simple as it is misconstrued. Her concern is the 1,000 billion euros that escapes the national states in Europe every year through tax evasion (“1000 milliards d’euros ! C’est la somme colossale qui échappe aux États chaque année en Europe. Jamais l’évasion fiscale n’a été aussi forte dans le monde.”).
The ‘loss’ of tax revenue arises from the operation of tax havens (“paradis fiscaux”) in the Caribbean and elsewhere and involve European companies, banks, and American digital companies producing income in one place but being structured for tax purposes in a low tax regime.
She claims that only a political response scale will militate against the tax losses (“Seule une réponse politique d’ampleur permettra de combattre ce fléau”) and restore national sovereignty (” la souveraineté des États et de l’Union”).
Σχετικές αναρτήσεις:
- Louri-Dendrinou, Ε. (2014) “Economic and financial changes since the onset of the global and euro area crises“, LSE EUROPP Blog, Greece: Taking Stock, 06 Νοεμβρίου.
- Pappadà, Fr., Zylberberg, Y. (2014) “Tax evasion and austerity-plan failure“, VoxEU Organisation, 3 Φεβρουαρίου.
- Kopczuk, W., Marion, J., Muehlegger, E. and Slemrod, J. (2013) “Tax incidence in the presence of tax evasion“, VoxEU, 30 Σεπτεμβρίου.