Video: discussion on tax revenue losses, Apple’s tax avoidance and ‘state aid’

We’re sharing here the opening panel discussion of the June 2017 European Financial Congress, Eastern Europe’s largest finance congress in Gdansk, Poland.

The theme of the panel was “Tax solidarity in the world and in the EU” and it features visiting Professor at Oxford University Philip Baker QC and the Tax Justice Network’s Markus Meinzer discussing tax revenue losses to Poland due to corporate tax avoidance, Apple’s tax avoidance and the related ‘state aid’ ruling. The discussion considers the following key questions:

• Have regulations, international conventions and bilateral agreements failed at limiting aggressive tax avoidance?
• Is there a chance that implemented BEPS rules, the new multilateral instrument (MLI) promoted by the OECD, will lead to tax
  solidarity among countries?
• Is there a risk that new widely implemented tax regulations contradict the rule of law (e.g. general anti-avoidance rule) or/and
  the subsidiarity principle (the EU regulations and European Court of Justice rulings)?
• Are the obligatory tax transparency standards, like Country By Country Reporting, Beneficial Ownership registers and whistleblower protections able to be more efficient in limiting aggressive tax planning than traditional tax agreements?

Enjoy the debate: