Paradise Papers give EU a push to fight tax evasion
BRUSSELS: The cache of 13.4 million leaked records dubbed the “Paradise Papers”, which documents how the rich and powerful evade taxes, puts a “renewed emphasis” on the European Union (EU) to fight such practices, EU Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on Monday.
His comments came after the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the documents on Sunday night, revealing the high-profile politicians, celebrities and monarchs who used offshore financial services to conceal their assets.
“We hope that this will provide a new impetus (for the) EU’s work against tax evasion,” Dombrovskis said at the sidelines of a meeting of eurozone finance ministers. Cases like this exactly emphasise the need to engage for all (EU) member states because, after all, it’s all member states which are losing their tax revenue,” he said.
The European Commission vice president also said more work needs to be done to create a public blacklist of tax havens.
Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem added that EU countries were also working on legislation to create rules of conduct for intermediary companies.
He rejected the idea that EU legislation to crack down on tax evasion has failed, noting that legislative processes were still “ongoing”.
“So, expecting that the world has changed even before the legislation is finished is perhaps expecting too much,” Dijsselbloem said.
The Paradise Papers range from 1950 to 2016 and include emails, business agreements and bank statements.
US Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain were two of the most prominent names mentioned in the records. – dpa