To accompany the much needed fiscal consolidation exercise across the EU current ly being put in place, ACCA (the

Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) fully endorses the importance of better coordination of taxation matters at nat ional, EU and international level The global accountancy body supports in particular the priority given on promoti ng and broadening the scope of the automatic exchange of information between tax administrations at the EU and global levels. In that vein, we look forward to t he forthcoming European Commission proposal - expected for June - to amend the S avings Taxation directive in order to extend, as from 2015, the total tax transp arency requirement on member states to dividends, royalties and capital gains. Chas Roy-Chowdhury, head of taxation at ACCA says: 'There has probably never bef ore been a time when so much political capital has been invested in this issue. Progress on automatic exchange of information in the area of taxation of savings would be a very significant step, given that the issue has been discussed for m any years but unanimous agreement has been impossible so far. If the IT arrangem ents can be sorted, the automatic exchange system has the potential to work quit e effectively.' 'ACCA also welcomes the call from EU leaders for quick agreement on the package of measures aiming to strengthen the fight against VAT fraud entailing the EU Di rectives on the quick reaction mechanism and on the reverse charge mechanisms. S imilarly it would be useful, as a complementary measure, to strengthen the Code of Conduct on business taxation,' Chas Roy-Chowdhury adds. On another note also addressed by EU leaders, John Davies, head of technical at ACCA points out: 'The European Commission is right to pursue a co-ordinated appr oach to the regulation of financial crime. Tax offences are likely to constitute a significant element of money laundering activity in most countries, and it ma kes sense for offences in that area to come within the scope of the revised dire ctive on money laundering. This will mean that regulated parties, such as accoun tants and banks, will be presented with a clear obligation to pass on to the aut horities any knowledge or suspicion they have of tax evasion on the part of thei r clients. We also welcome the EU executive s renewed commitment to the publicatio n by companies of details of their beneficial ownership: mandatory disclosure by companies of this information will make it much easier for regulated parties to fulfil their responsibilities.' 'In a globalised world, it is not enough to confine our thinking to Europe. We a lso need to address the challenges of taxation in the digital economy. We theref ore look forward to the publication of the results of the OECD Initiative on bas e erosion and profit shifting, as we believe this should pave the way towards a fairer approach to taxation. 'It is vital that we find solutions to many of the long-standing technical eleme nts of international tax law which have not kept pace with changes in technology and corporate mobility, and have led directly to many of the concerns about the accountability of multi-national companies. We cannot turn back the clock on ho w business is conducted but we can modernise the law to make sure that the princ iples of tax are properly applied in the changed circumstances. We therefore nee d meaningful improvement to solve the problems of the digital age. This will not be an easy task since there are likely to be winners and losers but the project is a crucial one,' Chas Roy-Chowdhury concludes