There now seems little doubt that Sarkozy will use France’s EU presidency to push for a common corporate tax base (CCTB) from July.
The structure is there, the Commission’s intent is clear. Now the Irish Independent reports two events which show that Sarkozy is planning to go for it.
Firstly a meeting of MEDEF, the French employer’s lobby group, at which Sarkozy said he wanted to introduce CCTB by as early as September. That’s an absurdly over-ambitious promise, but it shows the direction he plans to take.
Secondly the Irish Independent has seen the original agenda for the 2 July meeting of the EU’s Competitiveness Council, at which Laszlo Kovacs is slated to make a presentation about tax harmonisation. The agenda has allegedly been changed - cutting out the item so the public document doesn’t frighten the horses in Ireland before the referendum.
As for the structure, well the Commission is champing at the bit to get tax harmonised:
The European Commission believes that the only systematic way to address the underlying tax obstacles which exist for companies operating in more than one Member State in the Internal Market is to provide companies with a consolidated corporate tax base for their EU-wide activities.
Of course, Ireland will theoretically have a veto on CCTB, but in practice pressure may be brought to bear on the country to stay in line.
All in all it must be said that this news will not go down well in Ireland - and why should it? The low rate of corporation tax has been a big contributor to Ireland’s amazing success in recent years. Furthermore, it adds to the sense that Lisbon is being pushed through in a deceitful and dishonest way.
Link via Corporatetax