TAXATION: MUTUAL ASSISTANCE MECHANISMS UNDER-USED.

Transposition deadlines for Directives have not been met or have been significantly overshot, given that application procedures for the basic Directive (2001/44/EC) should have been transposed into national law by April 30, 2003 at the latest. Furthermore, several member states have dragged their feet in sending in annual statistics to the Commission, whilst statistics actually submitted on time have, on occasion, proved to be incoherent.

Data submitted by the member state has nevertheless revealed a number of important points. Between 2003 and 2004, requests for information between administrations almost doubled (from 435 to 727 requests). Notification requests meanwhile rose by 48% over the same period, with the payment requests up 33% (Germany accounting for a third of the increase and the new member states 10%). Sums recovered meanwhile increased by a factor of 2.58 between 2003 and 2004, rising from euro 5 to 13.8 million).

Increase in recovery requests.

The Commission nevertheless notes that figures need to be treated with some caution, particularly as the statistics "do not necessarily reflect the full impact of mutual assistance" since other bilateral or multilateral agreements also exist in this area (see below). It is important to note that whilst the gap between requests for assistance and recovery per se remains "considerable" this can be easily explained by the fact that requests for the recovery of debts in other EU member states are often regarded as a "last option". It is, however, a proven fact that the older a debt, the less the chance of its being successfully recovered.

Looking at the reasons behind this increase, the Commission recalls that the scope of Directive 2001/44/EC was expanded considerably to cover all debts linked to income tax, taxes on wealth and taxes on insurance premiums. The arrival of ten new member states is another contributory factor. Moreover, Directive 2000/65/EC, which removed all scope for member states to make the appointment of a tax representative within the EU for...