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Another success for the tax avoidance industry
Why should M&S, having disastrously invested overseas, have those losses offset against profits they have made in the UK? Why should the UK taxpayer be disadvantaged because M&S can't manage their overseas affairs?
As anyone who has ever written a software program knows, no matter how carefully you frame your code there is always some user out there who will find a way to use it that you did not think of.
The government needs to introduce a concept of "evasion through avoidance" where any activity that is not clearly indicated in law as acceptable for mitigating tax liability is deemed to be evasion unless the practitioners can prove that the avoidance is a fair and reasonable action within the spirit of the law.
'Enormous implications'
The ICAEW Tax Faculty said the Advocate General's opinion "will have enormous implications for the UK and the other Member States if it is followed by the European Court of Justice itself when it delivers is judgement. This is now expected in October."
It added: "In his conclusion the Advocate-General states:
'Articles 43 and 48 EC preclude the tax legislation of a Member State, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which prohibits a parent company established in a Member State from benefiting from the right to group relief on the ground that its subsidiaries are established in other Member States, whereas that relief would be granted if those subsidiaries were resident in that Member State.'
"The Advocate-General went on, however, to opine that Articles 43 and 48 do not preclude national legislation from making entitlement to group relief subject to the condition that it is established that the losses of subsidiaries resident in other Member States cannot be accorded 'equivalent tax treatment' in those Member States. However, the UK legislation does not currently contain any such provision.
"The Advocate-General considers that 'equivalent tax treatment' is where the losses of foreign subsidiaries are either capable of being transferred (to another legal person) or carried forward in the state of establishment.
"Earlier in the week Michel Aujean, Director of Tax Policy and Analysis, at the European Commission, wrote to the President of FEE (Fédération des Experts Comptables Européens) in relation to the FEE paper on cross border losses which was submitted to the Commission in January 2005. Mr Aujean considers that the provision of a solution to the lack of [relief for] cross-border losses within the European Union is one of the most pressing matters within the internal market."
Andrew Goodall
Editor, TaxZone