Austria and Luxembourg gave up

25.03.2014

For six years Austria and Luxembourg have been refusing to recognize the Savings Taxation Directive aimed at the fight against tax evasion. As the Prime Minister of Luxembourg stated, now Luxembourg is ready to adopt it. The Members of European Commission see only advantages in signing of Directive by above-mentioned countries: the level of tax transparency will be much higher. Also, so-called political aspect is highlighted: Austria and Luxembourg have not wanted to recognize the EU Directive for a long time, but now, when they do it officially, it can be concluded that the days of bank secrecy are numbered.

According to opinions of the Members of the European Commission a significant step towards automatic exchange of information was made by Switzerland, Liechtenstein, San-Marino, Andorra and Monaco. It is expected that they will adopt the Directive "in the coming weeks".

Based on: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-14 243_en.htm?locale=en

Expert’s opinion

The next step towards a new world order, which is called “crystal world” is made. The exchange of tax information - it's just one cog in a huge global system of finance movement. To make optimization of tax burden fall into oblivion it is necessary to make only one step: to make sure that paying taxes is easier and cheaper than inventing and exploiting optimization schemes. It can be made in two ways.

The first way is costly one, it means that procedures of tax optimization should be bureaucratized and tightened. This method is fiscal and in extremum it will cause strangulation of entrepreneurial activity.

The second way is easy and free. One should only cut taxes to tolerable level of payment and remove obstacles to the development of entrepreneurship. This is the path which will lead to the death of all hordes of fiscal authorities and will release colossal budget funds which were sent to procuring of loafers. 

Yaroslav Lomakin ( Managing partner of Honest & Bright” company)