International giants must not exploit Europe!

The European Parliament’s plenary (EP) voted on the report on the disclosure of corporate tax information. MEP Enikő Győri highlighted after the vote: “Fighting tax evasion and tax fraud is crucial for protecting the interests of European citizens. But under this pretext, the EU treaties must not be circumvented in any way.”

Tax evasion and tax fraud deprive the EU and its Member States of significant amounts of revenue. In many cases, giant corporations transfer their revenues to tax havens based on economically unsubstantiated cases. The Hungarian MEP stressed: “We have to recover from the crisis caused by COVID-19. It is more important than ever to have a competitive tax policy and regulatory framework to ensure that even international giants cannot avoid paying tax. This is in the interests of the Union, its Member States and its citizens. Large companies should not be allowed to exploit Europe’s countries: they should pay tax where they generate profit through real economic activity.”

At the same time, the politician condemned the legislative manoeuvring in tax policy: “The aim of the directive is noble, but it is worrisome that it has been adopted in a way that circumvents the EU treaties. The directive covers area under tax laws; however, the dossier was assigned to the area of competitiveness. Here, adoption of legislations happen through ordinary legislative procedure. Meanwhile taxation – a primarily national competence – requires unanimity in the Council when adopting EU legislation. Instead of circumventing EU law and undermining national sovereignty, we should aim at unifying the EU. We therefore abstained in the vote.”