Maltese MEP Alfred Sant has expressed his support for tax transparency measures, but objected to proposals for tax harmonisation measures at EU level.

He was addressing a conference entitled "Building an EU tax system" by the European Tax Adviser Federation (ETAF) in Brussels aimed at gathering MEPs, representatives from the European Commission and the current and upcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU, as well as stakeholders from a broad range of tax professionals notably in order to notably discuss the role of tax intermediaries in a "fairer EU tax system".

Dr Sant underlined that this legislation was "already a step forward towards defining and regulating how intermediaries will be working". Asked how corporations would react, Dr Sant stressed that there could be psychological reactions from clients but on the other hand, "not all corporations are immoral or out to cheat".

“It is normal that corporations want to minimise their tax bill, the question is whether they do it legally or not. I believe that quite a number of corporations want to have a tax panning that is legal and that is transparent,” he remarked.

Members of the European Parliament will be proposing their amendments on the Tax Directive during discussions to start on Thursday at the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in the European Parliament.

The Directive provides for the collection by tax authorities of "reportable" cross-border tax arrangements designed by intermediaries. These arrangements are reportable if they tick a number of features indicating a potential tax abuse. These features are called "hallmarks" in the legislation.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.