On May 22, 2013, European leaders have determined to fight against tax cheaters and have pledged to share bank account data across the European Union and also accelerate the initiatives to tackle abuse by companies.
The leaders are facing a rising anger from hard-pressed tax payers about the loss of revenue and also a wave of publicity about how the big companies are saving billions by misusing tax loopholes. The leaders of EU have agreed to the automatic exchange of information beginning from January 1, 2015.
As he arrived in Brussels, Werner Faymann, Austrian Chancellor told the reporters, “It’s a bad day for tax cheats”. Fayman also confirmed that he would support the legislation. Recently, Austria, along with Luxemburg, had delayed the progress on ending bank secrecy. Every year, state members of EU lose about one trillion euros to tax fraud and aggressive tax avoidance, which is the equivalent of total spending on health care across the 27 nations and almost double the collective annual budget deficit.
According to the EU officials, economic crisis broke a logjam that has held up efforts at taxation reform for several years. The recent measures will mainly target the wealthy individuals.
