One of the aims of the EU has always been political, tax and financial harmonisation as well as combating fraud. Some interesting news circulating this weekend is that the EU wants to launch an EU wide tax system with every EU citizen being given a new EU wide Tax Identification Number (EUTIN). The EU also want to centralise records of all assets held by corporations and individuals.
The harmonised common EUTIN and proposed minimum corporation tax rate of 15% across the EU is intended to prevent unfair competition from member states who may wish to offer low taxation to make inward investment more attractive than other countries.
The EU say that properly identifying taxpayers is essential to the fight against fraud and evasion. More worryingly the EU Tax Authority would have the power to access banking information for every EU citizen and potentially even pull tax money owed from their bank accounts.
Potentially an EUTIN would also be a precursor to an EU wide direct taxation scheme with funds extracted at source in the same way that employees pay income tax in the UK. Tax on savings could also be a future possibility.
The EU say “Proper identification of taxpayers is essential to effective exchange of information between tax administrations. The creation of European Taxpayer Identification Number (EU TIN) would provide the best means for this identification. It would allow any third party to quickly, easily and correctly identify and record TINs in cross-border relations and serve as a basis for effective automatic exchange of information between member states tax administrations”.
Of course we would all welcome fraud prevention, the end of carousel VAT evasion and knowing we were competing on a level playing field. The danger is, the same as HRMC’s efforts in the UK to encourage sole traders to register to pay income tax, that the only people caught will be those trying to do the right thing and anyone running a scam to avoid tax will continue to do so. It’ll also do little to force those outside of the EU to register and pay the correct VAT and taxes and an EUTIN may do little to coerce them to pay up.
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This is the start of the cashless payment system, the ultimate control of your life, if you are naughty they will switch you off and you will be stuck at the Aldi checkout with a full basket and no way to pay.
Meanwhile the very well off will be able to avoid it with various off shore schemes, its a war on the working and middle classes, people will have to set up their own local community money schemes, trouble is we have all been trapped in this ‘success measured by materialistic gain’ existence and we have too much to lose and they know it, take your money out of the bank so the eu cannot steal it and they will take your house, your car and anything else of value you may have, they have even changed the name of traffic wardens to local enforcement officers and they have been give the authority to deliver PACE and enter your home with police permission, even private security firms who are manned mostly by ex cons are to be used in the same way during civil protest. You are of no use to them if you are not earning money and buying things, thats why the pension age is forever increasing along with drug rationing for the aged, everything rises in price except your wages, no annual rises anymore, aggressive sickness and absence policies in the workplace, zero and temp contracts and we bury our heads in our 40 inch plasma tv’s and hope it will all go away, but it is not going to, its going to get a lot worse.
Back in the 1970’s I worked for a company that had for its day a very effective Computer System for keeping an eye of its assets. The trouble was that it did not work.
It was relatively easy to add new assets onto the system but very bad at registering their scrapping or other disposal. So our assets appeared to expand each and every year. There were trucks on the register that had gone years ago. Not to the scrapyard or sold for further use but probably cannibalised for spares or whatever. Rules were introduced that made it more difficult to buy new assets. So the blokes in the various departments bought the machines as spare parts and had their technicians built new machines that way.. Machines that as they were built from spares had no manufacturers serial numbers or other identification so confused everybody.
If I as a young Accountant went along to stock check the assets within a department the Manager would not speak to me. The Foreman would disappear and I was left with a Chargehand who had been instructed to give me the run around.
It was a total shambles. The trouble is in any largish company assets are being bought and disposed of so quickly nobody can keep a firm check on what that company owns. So how is a bunch of bureaucrats going to keep a check on what is going on. The system just will not work. It is dreamed up by a clown who has never worked in industry in his or her life.
Just think of all the ‘assets’ that are bought for companies or wealthy individuals that are stolen or worn out and disposed of. What about such as clothes. Today womens clothes can often cost thousands of pounds. I saw a handbag recently with a six figure price tag. Obviously an ‘asset’. Such prices make me very happy that I am single(divorced).
No doubt when the EU finds that it will not work the answer will be to vastly increased the number of Officials. And when it still does not work to add yet more Officials until everybody is checking up on the assets that everybody else is buying.
There really is only one answer and that is to get out of this dogs breakfast of an organisation(the EU) and bring some sanity back to at least the U.K.