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Directive amending 1977 Mutual Assistance Directive for direct tax purposes

The Council on 26 April 2004 adopted a Directive that is designed to speed up the flow of information between the tax authorities of Member States.

The Directive which relates to direct taxation (income tax, company tax and capital gains tax), together with Insurance Premium Tax, enables Member States to

  • co-ordinate their investigative action against cross-border tax fraud and
  • carry out more procedures on behalf of each other.

The Directive is based on a Commission proposal (COM(2003) 446 of 28/07/2003 ) and updates and rectifies weaknesses in the existing Directive on Mutual Assistance, 77/799/EEC. Modern technology and increased cross-border activity have made it more important than ever for information exchange and co-operation between tax administrations to be improved. A Council report on tax fraud of June 2000 (Council documents 8053/00 and 8668/00) noted that the existing EU directives and regulations were inadequate for the combat of fraud, which in the direct tax area involves, in particular, problems of under-invoicing and over-invoicing (transfer pricing).

This Directive complements other recently adopted EU legislation in the field of information exchange: the agreement on savings income and the Regulation on strengthening administrative co-operation in the VAT area.

For further information see press releases IP/04/539 and IP/03/1226.