"The first, indispensable and most important thing to do if you want to tackle the problem of corporate tax avoidance is to harmonise the tax base. Today's legislative proposal is the moment of truth in which we will see the honesty of the EU Member States. States who oppose these new rules want to base their economies on taking bread out of the mouths of others", said Burkhard Balz MEP, EPP Group Spokesman in Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, today.

The EPP Group has long been calling for the corporate tax draft law that the European Commission adopted today,  the so-called Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB).

“We do not want to harmonise corporate tax rates, but what is taxed and where it is taxed. The EPP Group wants to enforce the principle that taxes must be paid where value is created”, explained Balz.

States who oppose these rules want to take the bread out of the mouths of others.

Burkhard Balz MEP

Balz emphasised that the transitional period between introducing the common tax base (CCTB) and allowing companies to set off the earnings in one country against the losses in another country (CCCTB) must be as short as possible. "If the transition period is too long, this will create new problems. Member States should not create a situation like with VAT where the transitional period has already lasted more than 20 years", Balz stressed.