The European Commission has rejected BETTER FINANCE’s application to join their ‘Group of Experts on removing tax problems facing individuals who are active across borders within the EU’, the successor to the previous Expert Group on the Taxation of Savings of DG TAXUD. The EC’s DG Taxation did not provide any explanations for the rejection of the taxation expert nominated by BETTER FINANCE to join this group.
This decision is the more striking since the expert in question was successful in his previous application for membership to this Expert Group, closed by the Commission in 2014, the more so because DG TAXUD now rejects the application from the one and only pan-European organization representing retail investors in the European Union.
Citizens, in their capacity as individual shareholders and retail investors, face numerous taxation problems when conducting activities across different EU jurisdictions. For instance, the double taxation of dividends for shares held in other European jurisdictions is a long-standing problem, for which the Commission nevertheless failed to initiate action to reach a solution.
This decision by the European Commission is the latest in a series that encountered opposition and protest from civil society representatives as a consequence of the enduring imbalance between industry and citizen representatives in the so-called European Commission “Expert Groups” (fora where stakeholders conduct technical discussions that will be used by the Commission to draft their legislative proposals).
Following the concerns of civil society groups, the newly appointed European Ombudsman, Ms Emily O’Reilly, has recently opened an own initiative investigation on the composition and transparency of the Commission’s Expert Groups.
Please read more on the exclusion of consumer representatives here.