Reuters: EU would accept watered-down transaction tax - paper

29 December 2013

The EU's Taxation Commissioner has said he is prepared to accept a more limited tax on financial transactions, following concerns from some countries that the scope of the original proposal was too wide.

"We would support a compromise with a more limited remit... the only red line for us is that any loopholes which would jeopardise the main principle of the tax be avoided", Algirdas Semeta told German financial newspaper Boersen Zeitung.

Member States were examining an "ambitious proposal" by the Commission and discussing exemptions, Semeta said. "At the moment negotiations are centring on key themes such as government bonds and repo trades as well as how to treat primary dealers - market makers and pension funds”, he said.

A compromise could be agreed by next May, he added, although it would then take time to make law.

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