The European Commission will propose rules on Tuesday to force major
companies to publish details of where they make profits and where they
pay tax, as it moves to clamp down on tax avoidance following the Panama
Papers revelations.
Companies will have to disclose activities in tax havens, an amendment which has been added to earlier proposals, but campaigners say the measure may be toothless as European Union (EU) states have no common view of what constitutes a tax haven.
The commission wants to apply the measure to all firms with global annual turnover above 750 million euros ($856 million), meaning US companies such as Google and Facebook — which have faced criticism for their complicated tax avoidance mechanisms — will be subject to them.
The original plan had been for big companies to show only how much they paid in each EU state, with the rest of the world treated as a single item. Now, EU officials say, the draft will propose that they also list how much of their money outside the EU flows through each state classed by EU governments as a tax haven.
The problem, transparency campaigners say, is that there is no agreement among EU member states on the definition of a tax haven.
Read more: Europe Will Force Big Companies to Disclose How They Use Tax Havens | VICE News
Companies will have to disclose activities in tax havens, an amendment which has been added to earlier proposals, but campaigners say the measure may be toothless as European Union (EU) states have no common view of what constitutes a tax haven.
The commission wants to apply the measure to all firms with global annual turnover above 750 million euros ($856 million), meaning US companies such as Google and Facebook — which have faced criticism for their complicated tax avoidance mechanisms — will be subject to them.
The original plan had been for big companies to show only how much they paid in each EU state, with the rest of the world treated as a single item. Now, EU officials say, the draft will propose that they also list how much of their money outside the EU flows through each state classed by EU governments as a tax haven.
The problem, transparency campaigners say, is that there is no agreement among EU member states on the definition of a tax haven.
Read more: Europe Will Force Big Companies to Disclose How They Use Tax Havens | VICE News
