The European Parliament asks to toughen the sanctions against fictitious companies created to evade taxes

BRUSSELS, 17 Ene. (EUROPE PRESS) -

The plenary session of the European Parliament has requested this Tuesday an extension of the scope and a tightening of the sanctions in the legislation to prevent companies from the European Union (EU) with no or minimal economic activity from benefiting from tax advantages in the Member States where are established.

MEPs have adopted this position by 637 votes in favour, 2 against and 6 abstentions that modify the Commission's proposal for a directive that establishes the criteria to determine a fictitious company used to avoid or evade taxes, the corresponding sanctions and the requirements of information.

The so-called 'Unshell' directive aims to establish transparency standards and objective indicators related to company income, personnel and facilities in order to help tax authorities detect abuses and flag fictitious entities.

Thus, the European Parliament has asked to slightly reduce the thresholds below which a company is exempt from the information requirements of the directive, and to establish sanctions that will also be imposed on companies with zero or low income.

To allow for a better distinction between legitimate and existing shell companies for tax purposes, MEPs are also proposing to amend information sharing requirements between member states to ensure better quality and integrity of the data being shared.

As far as penalties are concerned, the opinion of MEPs is that these should amount to a minimum of 2% of a company's revenue in the relevant fiscal year for failing to report correctly and 4% of revenue for making false declarations. and, in the case of zero income or less than a threshold set by the national tax authority, the penalty must be based on the total assets of the company.

This opinion will now be transmitted to the Council, which will have to take it into account when adopting the directive.