Red Lines, White flag, White lies, Blue flag – the truth behind tax harmonisation

Global Vision is a non-partisan campaign group that believes Britain needs to negotiate a looser, more modern relationship with the EU to reflect the rapidly changing world of the 21st century. The new relationship should be based on trade and cooperation, whilst opting out of political and economic union.

This paper examines the case for EU-wide tax harmonisation, the European Commission’s drive towards it and the UK government’s response.

The report has 3 threads:

· It examines how the European Commission – despite the lack of evidence that tax harmonisation would benefit the EU and against the wishes of most Member States – seeks undemocratic methods to pursue its tax harmonisation goals, often regardless of the wider consequences.

· It investigates whether tax harmonisation would actually benefit the EU and whether its proponents use it as a mask for other objectives. It also looks at whether harmonisation has been applied equally to all Member States.

· Labour frequently protests how it has defended the UK from tax harmonisation. The paper compares the public protests with the silent actions.