On May 11, 2016 the Dutch Ministry of Finance published a.o. a presidency summary of the informal Ecofin meeting of Ministers and Central Bank Governors Amsterdam, 22 & 23 April 2016 (in the Dutch and the English languages) and a document titled: “Informal ECOFIN - Line to take NL Presidency” on its website.

Presidency summary of the informal ECOFIN meeting

In this document several discussions on different subjects are summarized. The subjects include a.o. Working session: Panama Papers and Working session: VAT fraud.

Working session: Panama Papers

In this respect the following summary is given:

“The discussion at the Informal Ecofin meeting on the "Panama Papers" revelations focused on tax fraud, tax evasion, aggressive tax planning and money laundering. The possible actions in response to the release of the Panama Papers were discussed. All Member States agreed that action is needed to prevent these schemes. Transparency is essential. All Member States expressed their intention to participate in a pilot project for automatic exchanges of information on ultimate beneficial owners.

The Netherlands Presidency will take forward the work on the amendment to the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive which, as the Commission announced, will be submitted to the European Parliament and the Council in June. Ministers were of the opinion that the upcoming revision should go beyond the amendments announced by the Commission in February, which are largely geared towards antiterrorist financing. The Commission was therefore invited to consider improvements to address certain issues linked specifically to money laundering, in particular to enhance accessibility of beneficial owners registers on corporate and other legal entities, as well as on trusts and similar legal arrangements, to clarify the registration requirements to trusts, to speed up the interconnection of national beneficial ownership registers, to promote automatic exchanges of information on beneficial ownership between authorities and to strengthen customer due diligence rules.

It emerged from the discussion that Ministers support the establishment of an EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions and coordinated defensive measures to be defined in the Council, working closely and in parallel with the OECD. The Council will discuss this matter at the May Ecofin. Furthermore, Member States expressed the view that it is of great importance to reach political agreement on the Anti-tax Avoidance Directive and to adopt council conclusions on the Communication on External Strategy during the May Ecofin and agreed that the discussion on public Country-by-Country reporting needs to start swiftly.”

Working session: VAT fraud

In this respect the following summary is given:

“The Council exchanged views on measures to fight VAT fraud in the EU. There was full support for the need for swift EU action to tackle VAT fraud. Most of the Member States were positive about automatic exchange of information being the way forward in tackling Vat fraud and were prepared -within the coming months- to identify the necessary preconditions for them to be able to start with the use of TNA. The IT Tool which was presented will be discussed again at the May Ecofin, with the aim that those Member States who wishes to do so can voluntary start with the tool. The May Ecofin will also focus on Council Conclusions on the VAT Action Plan, which also deals with VAT fraud.”

Click here to be forwarded to the English version of the presidency summary of the informal Ecofin meeting of Ministers and Central Bank Governors Amsterdam, 22 & 23 April 2016 as available on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Finance (Pdf-file).

Informal ECOFIN - Line to take NL Presidency

Furthermore the Dutch Ministry also published a document titled: “Informal ECOFIN - Line to take NL Presidency”. In this document the Dutch Ministry provides some more information on how the Dutch presidency intends to go forward on some issues that were discussed with respect to the Panama Papers.

In the document it is a.o. stated that:

·        The Dutch presidency is determined to reach agreement on the AntiTax-Avoidance Directive file at the upcoming May ECOFIN.

·        With respect to the European Commission’s  proposal on public country by country reporting of multinational accounts the Presidency acknowledges the importance of bringing this file to a good conclusion and that it will start the discussions on the Commission’s proposal.

·        The Presidency aims for consensus on the method for setting up such listing and will propose conclusions to be adopted at the May Ecofin.

·        The Presidency aims for consensus on the method for setting up an EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions and coordinated defensive measures to be defined by the Council, working closely and in parallel with the OECD and will propose conclusions to be adopted at the May Ecofin.

·        The Presidency invites the Commission to consider initiatives on Mandatory Disclosure Rules inspired by action 12 of the OECD BEPS project with a view to introducing more effective disincentives for intermediaries who assist in tax evasion schemes.

·        The Netherlands Presidency will take forward the work on the amendment to the 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive which, as the Commission announced, will be submitted to the European Parliament and the Council in June. The Netherlands Presidency wants to advance on this legislative proposal as far as it can before it hands it over to its Slovak colleagues.

Click here to be forwarded to the “Informal ECOFIN - Line to take NL Presidency” as available on the website of the Dutch Ministry of Finance (Pdf file).

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