The tax war between the US and the EU appears to be over. It was triggered by the EU’s minimum tax on, among other things, foreign subsidiaries whose parent companies do not pay at least 15% tax on their accounting profits.
Do European companies pay their fair share of tax? Many companies headquartered in France, Germany, Italy and Spain show very low effective corporate tax rates (ECTRs). Their effective tax rates are often much lower than those of digital corporations, including the largest tech companies headquartered in the United States.
Corporate taxation continues to slow down economic recovery in France despite the CICE, a tax credit meant to encourage competitiveness and employment.
Here in EPICENTER, our authors have consistently opposed the Commission’s proposal for a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base – better known in EU policy circles by its rather Soviet-looking acronym, CCCTB.
The Commission should work to preserve the highest degree of tax competition between Member States. The CCCTB poses the danger of fundamentally hindering this vital feature of the internal market, and should therefore be reconsidered.