Activities of Joachim ZELLER related to 2015/2058(INI)
Plenary speeches (1)
UN International conference on financing for development (13-16 July 2015) - Tax avoidance and tax evasion as challenges in developing countries (debate) DE
Amendments (27)
Amendment 22 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas taxation can be a reliable and sustainable source of development financerevenue in developing countries if there is a pgrogressivewth- oriented and well-balanced taxation regime, an effective and efficient tax administration to promote tax compliance, and transparent, and a transparent, responsible and accountable use of public revenue;
Amendment 25 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas fairgrowth-oriented and well- balanced tax regimes provide vital finance to governments to cover citizens’ rights toneeds for basic services, such as healthcare and education for all, and whereas effective redistributive fiscal policies are essential in decreasing the effect of growing inequalities;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
Da. whereas tax regimes in developing countries should encourage the creation of jobs by attracting necessary foreign investments as well as by supporting micro, small and medium-sized enterprises;
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
Db. whereas effective fiscal policies are essential in strengthening the social contract between government and citizens, in order to increase low taxpayer morale and to create a reciprocal link between tax, public and social services;
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas the potential benefits of taxation go beyond the increase in available resources to foster development, but have a direct positive side-effect on good governance and state-building by strengthening the rule of law and democratic institutions, promoting long- term independence from foreign assistance and allowing developing countries to assume ownership of their policy choices;
Amendment 36 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F
Recital F
F. whereas developing countries face major political and administrative constraints in raising tax revenues as a result of insufficient human and financial resources to collect taxes, weak administrative capacity to deal with the complexity of imposcollecting taxes on certain activities of transnational companies, lack of tax collection infrastructurecapacities, a drain of skilled personnel away from tax administrations, corruption, lack of legitimacy of the political system, an uneveninadequate distribution of revenues and poor tax governance;
Amendment 42 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital F a (new)
Recital F a (new)
Fa. whereas the gradual removal of trade barriers over the past decades has increased the amount of cross-border- traded goods and services, and hence has led to a widening of the tax base in developing countries;
Amendment 46 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas, comparatively speaking, developing countries raise substantially less revenue than advanced economies and are characterised by extremely narrow tax bases, and there is considerable potential for increasing the tax-to-GDP ratioamount of tax revenues in order to provide the necessary means for essential governmental responsibilities, especially in the least industrialised countries (LICs);
Amendment 49 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas developing countries have been offering various tax incentives and exemptions, leading to harmful tax competition and a ‘race to the bottom’ that brings greater benefit to multinational corporations (MNCs) than to developing countrieunsatisfactory outcomes in terms of effective and efficient tax systems;
Amendment 64 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas many developing countries cannot attain even the minimum tax level necessary to finance their basic functioning, their public services and their efforts to reduce povertyoften do not collect sufficient means to finance necessary governmental responsibilities;
Amendment 71 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas developing countries are heavily underrepresenshould be better supported in the existing structures and procedures of international tax cooperation, and do notin order to participate on an equal footing in the current global processes seeking to redefinfurther improve international tax rules, such as the OECD base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) process;
Amendment 75 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas revenue raising can have an important role to play in rebalancing gender inequalitiecollecting sufficient levels of public finances can have an important role to play in having more equitable societies without discrimination between men and women and special support in particular for children and vulnerable groups;
Amendment 80 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Calls on the Commission to put forward an action plan, in the form of a communication, on supporting developing countries in fighting tax dodgingillicit capital flows and setting up fairerbetter-balanced tax systems, taking into account the work undertaken by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in advance of the Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to be held from 13 to 16 July 2015, and the impact of international tax treaties on developing countries;
Amendment 90 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 a (new)
Paragraph 3 a (new)
3a. Underlines the necessity of having a well-balanced tax mixture with a significant share of the tax revenue in developing countries originating from value added tax (VAT); recalls that in contrary to income taxes, VAT equally puts the burden on imported goods and hence supports domestic economic activities in developing countries; however, takes into account the need for reduced rates for basic and necessary goods of daily consumption as well as the possibility of additional sin taxes in particular on tobacco or alcohol products;
Amendment 92 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3 b (new)
Paragraph 3 b (new)
3b. Stresses the importance of efficient and growth-oriented tax regimes in developing countries in order to attract necessary foreign investments as well as to support micro, small and medium-sized enterprises;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Urges the Commission to support developing countries and regional tax administration frameworks in the fight against tax dodgingillegal capital flows, in developing fairerbetter-balanced tax policies, in promoting administrative reforms and in order to increase the share, in terms of aid and development, of financial and technical assistance to the national tax administrations of developing countries;
Amendment 98 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Regrets that only an estimated 0.1 percent (USD 118.4 million) of ODA was dedicated to capacity building in tax matters in 2012; calls for a significant increase of respective technical assistance programmes to 0.5 percent of provided ODA in order to strengthen tax administration and statistical capacities in developing countries;
Amendment 99 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4 b (new)
Paragraph 4 b (new)
4b. Encourages the development of Twinning initiatives, beyond countries in enlargement negotiations or in the framework of the EU Neighbourhood Policy; calls for bringing together public sector expertise from EU Member States and beneficiary countries, aiming to enhance cooperative activities while yielding at preliminarily agreed and concrete operational results for beneficiary countries; supports workshops, training sessions, expert missions, study visits and counselling in order to bring about changes both in the structure of beneficiary institutions, as well as in the respective regulatory tax frameworks in developing countries;
Amendment 100 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Asks the Commission to give good governance in tax matters and faireffective tax collection a high place on the agenda in its policy dialogue (political, development and trade) and in all development cooperation agreements with partner countries;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Urges that information on beneficial ownership of companies, trusts and other institutions be made publicly available in open-data formats, in order to prevent anonymous shell companies and similar legal structurcomparable legal entities from being used to finance illegal activities;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Calls on the EU and the Member States to enforce the principle that multinational companies must adopt country-by-country reporting (CBCR) as standard, requiring them to publish as part of their annual reportadopt country-by-country reporting (CBCR) as a common practice, requiring large multinational companies onf all country-by-country basis for each territory in which they operate the names of all subsidiaries, their financial performance, relevant taxies and sectors to publish required information, assets and number of employees, and to ensure that this information is publicly available part of their annual report on a country-by-country basis;
Amendment 123 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Welcomes the adoption of an Automatic Exchange of Information mechanism, a fundamental tool for enhancing global transparency and cooperation in the fight against tax avoidance and tax evasion; acknowledges, however, that support in terms of expertise and time is needed for developing countries to build the required capacity to send and process information;
Amendment 132 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. Urges the Commission and all the Member States, following the example of some Member States and in conformity with Art. 5 (3) TEU, to conduct impact assessments of European tax policies on developing countries, in order to strengthen policy coherence for development and remove practices that have negative spilloverimprove current practices to take better into account the special needs onf developing countries;
Amendment 139 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Stresses than when negotiating tax treaties with developing countries, source- country taxation rights should be preserved, and the UN Model Tax Conventionincome or profits resulting from cross-border activities should be preferrtaxed toin the OECD Model Tax Conventionsource country, in order to avoid a bias towards developed countries’ interests and to ensure a fair distribun effective collection of taxing right revenues;
Amendment 141 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Urges the EU and the Member States to ensure that the UN taxation committee is transformed into a genuine intergovernmental body equipped with additional resourcesbetter equipped with additional resources inside the framework of the UN Economic and Social Council, ensuring that developing countries can participate equally in the global reformmore effectively in the further global development of existing international tax rules;
Amendment 146 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Stresses that gender analysis should be made central to tax justicesufficient levels of public finance can contribute to an environment with less discrimination between men and women and with better support in particular for children and vulnerable groups in society;
Amendment 152 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Calls on the EIB to ensure that companies or other legal entities that receive EIB support do not participate in tax evasion via offshore centres and tax haveninteract with financial intermediaries established in offshore centres and tax havens in terms of illicit capital flows;