Lisbon Treaty Irish Referendum: Corporate Tax Harmonisation

national | eu | press release Wednesday April 30, 2008 19:18 by O.O'C. - National Platform EU Reseach & Information Centre info at nationalplatform dot org 24 Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9 01-8305792

Does the Lisbon Treaty require unanimity for corporate taxation harmonisation, or is there a back door to outlaw Ireland's low rate because of "distortion of competition"?

Proponents of the Treaty of Lisbon insist there is nothing new with regard to tax harmonisation in this treaty; this is positively wrong - and we can show you the facts to prove it.

The National Platform EU Research & Information Centre is publicising two articles regarding EU harmonisation of corporate taxation.

This issue has caused considerable controversy, as proponents of the the Treaty of Lisbon in the referendum in Ireland (including a visiting Commission President, José Manuel Barroso) have repeatedly claimed that the Treaty does not have anything to do with tax harmonisation.

However, while the Lisbon Treaty does not impose a _particular_ rate, it _does_ allow the EU Court of Justice to outlaw Ireland's low rate, by ruling that taxation differences amongst countries (such as Ireland's versus Germany's, for example) are a distortion of competition in the internal EU market.

As Jens Peter Bonde MEP puts it: "when are differences not distortions of competition?"

The full and legally valid explanation of this is available in the following posts online:

"Barroso, Bonde and Ireland’s company Taxes"; and
"Lisbon Treaty: mandatory tax harmonisation for Ireland";
at:
http://nationalplatform.wordpress.com/category/tax-harm...ects/

This and more information is available at:
The National Platform EU Resource & Information Centre -
http://www.nationalplatform.org
and the Lisbon Treaty Irish Referendum Blog by National Platform at -
http://nationalplatform.wordpress.org