BECAUSE BREXIT MEANS BREXIT, LOSERS. LOL.
What do you think of what Junker was up to? Vis
The president of the European commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, spent years in his previous role as Luxembourg’s prime minister secretly blocking EU efforts to tackle tax avoidance by multinational corporations, leaked documents reveal.
Years’ worth of confidential German diplomatic cables provide a candid account of Luxembourg’s obstructive manoeuvres inside one of Brussels’ most secretive committees.
The code of conduct group on business taxation was set up almost 19 years ago to prevent member states from being played off against one another by increasingly powerful multinational businesses, eager to shift profits across borders and avoid tax.
Little has been known until now about the workings of the committee, which has been meeting since 1998, after member states agreed a code of conduct on tax policies and pledged not to engage in “harmful competition” with one another.
However, the leaked cables reveal how a small handful of countries have used their seats on the committee to frustrate concerted EU action and protect their own tax regimes.
Efforts by a majority of member states to curb aggressive tax planning and to rein in predatory tax policies were regularly delayed, diluted or derailed by the actions of a few of the EU’s smallest members, frequently led by Luxembourg.
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Hundreds of the multinational corporations rushed to channel international profits through subsidiaries in the country, among them McDonald’s, Fiat, Amazon, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Skype.
The secret to this success was exposed in 2014 when the Luxleaks scandal revealed the terms hidden within hundreds of private deals, known as “tax rulings”, that Luxembourg had handed out to multinational businesses behind closed doors.
The rulings effectively rubber-stamped complex tax structures that global corporations used to access ultra-low tax rates, often less than 1%, for profits shifted to Luxembourg.
Juncker conceded the scandal had damaged his reputation. While not illegal, he admitted Luxembourg’s tax system was also “not always in line with fiscal fairness” and may have breached “ethical and moral standards”.
