The EU’s fight with tax haven states

Our Michaela Matějková explores, in her latest blog, the issue of tax haven and tax evasion and the stance of the Union towards fighting them.

• In recent years several leaks of information from tax heavens, some of them are called Swiss leaks, Panama papers or Paradise papers, have raised public awareness of massive tax evasion. Those documents shocked the entire world by how many people, including public officials, were involved.
• From then on, the endeavour to prevent these tax avoidances and evasions began and the EU is one of the most active.

This process of making aggressive tax avoidance practically illegal is supported mainly by arguments of how much money could have been used on improving welfare in each and every member state.

On one side there is pressure of the EU as a whole and other states who are losing their money and on the other side there are joint forces of wealthy companies using the possibility to minimize the amount of payed taxes and tax heaven states who are all profiting.

By fighting the tax evasion and tax avoidance, EU shows its high moral credit. Unfortunately, for the time being, it seems that it is fighting practically barehanded except for stepping up the pressure on CSR and leading several investigations of TNC for illegal tax evasion.

You can read the whole blog on EurActive's website.

Michaela Matějková
Intern