**Warsaw is now the only EU holdout on the deal.**
LUXEMBOURG — Poland may seem like the odd man out on global tax reform, but it has no hidden agenda in opposing the EU’s efforts to introduce a global minimum corporate levy of 15 percent, a top official told POLITICO.
Magdalena Rzeczkowska, Poland’s secretary of state and head of its national revenue administration, made the comments on Tuesday less than 30 minutes after vetoing an EU bill designed to implement the initiative, which G20 countries agreed on last fall in a wider bid to obliterate tax havens and ensure that tech giants pay their fair dues.
“No, this is just about tax,” Rzeczkowska said when questioned whether Warsaw was holding the initiative hostage due to rule-of-law disputes with the European Commission, which has taken Warsaw to court over its controversial disciplinary procedure for judges.
The EU’s highest court sided with the Commission and is fining Poland €1 million a day until it changes its ways. The EU’s executive arm is also holding back €36 billion in payouts from the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund until Poland falls in line.
“This is a completely separate issue,” she asserted.
Poland is now the only EU country standing in the way of the deal after previous holdouts — namely Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Sweden — had withdrawn their vetoes ahead of Tuesday for this month’s gathering of finance ministers, following minor changes to the bill. Tax initiatives in the EU require unanimous support to become law.
Warsaw says it’s not opposed to the minimum tax per se. But it frames the problem as an issue of linkage: The initiative is part of a two-pronged global project that includes a levy on the world’s 100 biggest companies (dubbed Pillar 1) that would then share the proceeds across the world. Without legal guarantees from the countries that signed up for Pillar 1 alongside the minimum corporate tax rate (Pillar 2), Poland says it will refuse to budge.
“We were convinced that digital giants have to be taxed, and splitting the two will not give an assurance that the whole package will happen,” Rzeczkowska said. Otherwise, “there are some risks to the level playing field, and there is a risk that investors, the companies, will go from poorer countries to the richer [ones.]”
Poland is a EU member state, equal member state. It has the right to not agree with everything and a lot of other member states didnt agree on this without some changes.
If EU wants Poland to agree on this, then they need to come to an agreement. That is how these major decisions are to be done.
Some people do seem to think that in order to not be anti-EU, you need to agree with everything EU does, even though if these people ever want EU to be a legitiment confederation/federal state, it needs to accept that EU can go anyway the member states decide. The most usual EU agenda cant be the only way.
Sanction the sh*t out of them if you can’t kick them out.
Cool, lets see what their concerns are and address any legitimate concerns while making sure they dont have/use any nonsensical excuses.
And hopefully people here stop crying about how “we must sanction them and/or kick them out because they dont submit” because these people are part of the problem.
I don’t rellay get the reasoning…because digital giants as facebook could move out of Poland (?!!??)
When even Malta, Cyprus, Netherlands and Ireland (the usual tax havens) supports the tax reform then you know there is likely something messed up with the Polish agenda.
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**Warsaw is now the only EU holdout on the deal.**
LUXEMBOURG — Poland may seem like the odd man out on global tax reform, but it has no hidden agenda in opposing the EU’s efforts to introduce a global minimum corporate levy of 15 percent, a top official told POLITICO.
Magdalena Rzeczkowska, Poland’s secretary of state and head of its national revenue administration, made the comments on Tuesday less than 30 minutes after vetoing an EU bill designed to implement the initiative, which G20 countries agreed on last fall in a wider bid to obliterate tax havens and ensure that tech giants pay their fair dues.
“No, this is just about tax,” Rzeczkowska said when questioned whether Warsaw was holding the initiative hostage due to rule-of-law disputes with the European Commission, which has taken Warsaw to court over its controversial disciplinary procedure for judges.
The EU’s highest court sided with the Commission and is fining Poland €1 million a day until it changes its ways. The EU’s executive arm is also holding back €36 billion in payouts from the bloc’s post-pandemic recovery fund until Poland falls in line.
“This is a completely separate issue,” she asserted.
Poland is now the only EU country standing in the way of the deal after previous holdouts — namely Estonia, Hungary, Malta and Sweden — had withdrawn their vetoes ahead of Tuesday for this month’s gathering of finance ministers, following minor changes to the bill. Tax initiatives in the EU require unanimous support to become law.
Warsaw says it’s not opposed to the minimum tax per se. But it frames the problem as an issue of linkage: The initiative is part of a two-pronged global project that includes a levy on the world’s 100 biggest companies (dubbed Pillar 1) that would then share the proceeds across the world. Without legal guarantees from the countries that signed up for Pillar 1 alongside the minimum corporate tax rate (Pillar 2), Poland says it will refuse to budge.
“We were convinced that digital giants have to be taxed, and splitting the two will not give an assurance that the whole package will happen,” Rzeczkowska said. Otherwise, “there are some risks to the level playing field, and there is a risk that investors, the companies, will go from poorer countries to the richer [ones.]”
Poland is a EU member state, equal member state. It has the right to not agree with everything and a lot of other member states didnt agree on this without some changes.
If EU wants Poland to agree on this, then they need to come to an agreement. That is how these major decisions are to be done.
Some people do seem to think that in order to not be anti-EU, you need to agree with everything EU does, even though if these people ever want EU to be a legitiment confederation/federal state, it needs to accept that EU can go anyway the member states decide. The most usual EU agenda cant be the only way.
Sanction the sh*t out of them if you can’t kick them out.
Cool, lets see what their concerns are and address any legitimate concerns while making sure they dont have/use any nonsensical excuses.
And hopefully people here stop crying about how “we must sanction them and/or kick them out because they dont submit” because these people are part of the problem.
I don’t rellay get the reasoning…because digital giants as facebook could move out of Poland (?!!??)
When even Malta, Cyprus, Netherlands and Ireland (the usual tax havens) supports the tax reform then you know there is likely something messed up with the Polish agenda.