"Samband" með "Bene(lux)fits"

Á undanförnum árum hefur all mikið verið rætt um svokölluð skattaskjól á meðal Íslendinga og reyndar víðar um veröldina. Mest og hæst hefur umræðan verið um Tortola.

En skattaskjólin eru mun nær Íslandi.

Beneluxlöndin ásamt Írlandi hafa myndað "skattaskjólbeltið" í Evrópusambandinu. Þarlend stjórnvöld hafa gert afar hagstæða skattasamninga við alþjóðleg fyrirtæki og þannig flutt skatttekjur til sín, en jafnframt "rænt" önnur lönd Evrópska efnahagssvæðisins tekjum. Þó þannnig að alþjóðafyrirtækin hafa sparað sér fjallháar upphæðir í skattagreiðslum.

Íslendingum er þetta all kunnugt, enda ef til vill ekki einleikið hvað mörg íslensk fyrirtæki kusu að starfa í Luxemburg og Hollandi á árunum fyrir hrun. Ég veit ekki hvort að líta þarf á mikinn útflutning Íslendinga til Hollands nú, að hluta til sömu augum.

Áður en lengra er haldið er rétt að taka fram að að það að flytja fé í skattaskjól þarf ekki á nokkurn hátt að vera ólöglegt. Það er líka vert að hafa í huga að það er tvennt ólíkt hvort að ríki hefur lága skattprósentu, sem gildir þá fyrir öll fyrirtæki, eða hvort það gerir sérstaka samninga við einstaka fyrirtæki.

Það fannst því mörgum ótrúlegt að heyra Juncker, forseta framkvæmdastjórnar Evrópusambandsins (og fyrrum forsætisráðherra Luxemburgar) að "Sambandið" væri í forystu fyrir því að afnema skaðlega "skattasamkeppni" og skoraði á ríki heims að fylgja fordæmi þess.

Mörgum fannst það stórt upp í sig tekið, því "Luxleaks" er flestum enn í fersku minni.

Nýleg grein í Der Spiegel sýnir hvernig Benelux löndin buðu stórfyritækjum gríðarlega hagstæða skattasamninga og stóðu í vegi fyrir breytingum á löggjöf "Sambandsins" sem hefði getað svipt þau þessum miklu aukaskatttekjum.

Það þarf ekki að undra að mörg nágrannaríkjanna telja að þær hafi verið á sinn kostnað.

Í grein Der Spiegel segir m.a.:

"Representatives of the other EU member states knew very well what was going on. The German representative in the Working Group on Tax Questions, for example, filed a cable to Berlin in March 2013 in which he noted there had been repeated "doubts about the harmlessness" of a few of the tax models, "mostly having to do with the license box rules of LUX and NDL," the abbreviations being references to Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

But nothing was done about it for years. Each time the Working Group on Tax Questions proposed changes, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands warded them off successfully. It's no wonder, either, given that representatives of the Benelux countries regularly coordinated their decisions in advance at their own meetings.

Stonewalling and other Tactics

Working in close collaboration, Luxembourg and the Netherlands refused to reveal information about tax rulings for major corporations as far back as 2010, four years prior to the LuxLeaks scandal.

The new revelations are highly sensitive. It's not just European Commission President Juncker whose past as the leader of the tax-haven Luxembourg is catching up to him. Another important man at the top of an EU institution also now has some uncomfortable questions to answer: Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem. Even after ascending to his current position as head of the Euro Group, his country continued to block every call for change."

Greinin lýsir nánar hvernig Benelux löndin soguðu til sín skatttekjur, með einstökum samningum niður í 1% skattprósentu fyrir fyrirtæki.

Og allir vita hvað hefur verið gert og hvað þarf að gera, en ekkert geristm nema að nefndirnar funda, það gerist varla meira "Evrópusambandslegra" en það:

When it comes to EU tax issues, not much can be done without consensus, a reality that also applies to the Code of Conduct Group. The group has been meeting four to six times a year since 1998 and for at least the last half decade, no issue has been as controversially discussed as that of the patent box. But nothing has been done. In the EU, tax-code compliance is treated not unlike age-limits for movies: It is largely voluntary.

Joining Forces

That was the situation back in March 2013 when tax experts met to discuss possible future guidelines to address problematic tax practices. "A taxation provision can be harmful," read a statement prepared prior to the meeting, "if its intention is not that of serving the economic targets of a member state, for example that of stimulating the economy or innovation." It is really quite a banal sentence: Tax rebates only make sense when the country offering them benefits as well.

But the Benelux countries immediately understood that the sentence took direct aim at their patent box and, as usual, they joined forces in an effort to have it removed. It would be best, they demanded, were the Code of Conduct Group to no longer focus on harmful practices that had already been implemented. "BEL, NDL, LUX demanded that certain, not-yet-evaluated, potentially harmful regimes could only be evaluated by way of a formal revision," the German group member reported to Berlin. That is akin to allowing criminals to decide when their crimes fall under the statute of limitations.

The timing of the meeting was sensitive for another reason: In March 2013, Dijsselbloem was no longer simply finance minister of the Netherlands. By then, he had already been named head of the Euro Group, the body of EU finance ministers that coordinates finance and tax policy with the common currency member states. It is the Euro Group that helps make important decisions on aid packages for Greece and other euro-zone member states.

But when it comes to the patent box, the Netherlands was not first and foremost concerned about the integrity of the common currency union. Rather, the country's own national interests were in the foreground. That can be seen in the Dutch response to a compromise proposal put forward by Germany and the United Kingdom. Even though the compromise plan was approved by tax experts from the OECD, the Netherlands entered a "reservation of political nature." The rest of the group resolved that changes to the existing patent box guidelines "must be introduced by the middle of 2015."

Stalling Tactic

So far, though, almost nothing has happened. And Luxembourg has continued its efforts to block any changes. After experts from all member states, following years of debate, finally managed to arrive at a cautiously critical appraisal of the tax-rebate model, "LUX requested a written evaluation from the Council's legal services," a German EU diplomat wrote in June 2014. The move was clearly a stalling tactic.

Í lok greinarinnar (sem ég hvet alla til að lesa í heild sinni), má lesa eftirfarandi:

"Juncker's credibility has been shaken, partly because the accusations aren't just about tax law. They also call into question the image that Juncker has for years been portraying of himself, that of the model European. Now, he stands accused of being the architect of a business model that is based on the extremely un-European principle of steering tax flows away from neighboring countries into Luxembourg's coffers. As Commission president, he demands EU solidarity almost daily when it comes to the refugee crisis. But how credible can he be after years of promoting policies that can accurately be described by the term "tax dumping?""

Það þarf engan að undra þó að hrikti í "Sambandinu", í góðsemi vega þeir hver annan á þeim "Glæsivöllum".