Press launch - EPSU closing the tax gap campaign - 7 November 2012 Brussels

Where has the money gone? Missing €1Trillion in Europe EPSU calls to stop tax dodging and invest in tax services to finance the welfare state

(6 November 2012) A new European campaign is going to be launch at the time of the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) Executive Committee. The campaign flows from the EPSU tax justice agenda alongside demands for a Financial Transactions Tax, EU common principles on progressive and efficient tax systems, a common corporate tax, and closing down tax heavens. Tax justice is central to the trade union alternatives to austerity in Europe.

Every year, it is estimated that €1000 billion of public revenues are lost in the EU due to tax fraud and avoidance. Closing the tax gap, the difference between how much governments expect to raise and how much they do raise, is vital to tackle the EU public deficit/debt, to contribute to tax fairness as it is the ordinary individual who bears the brunt of tax dodging and to regain citizens’ trust in progressive and efficient tax collection to finance public services. The way forward is investing more into tax administration:

•  it more than pays for itself,
•  it will combat tax evasion directly,
•  it will help close the legal loopholes that make tax avoidance possible

At present, rather than putting more resources, governments are cutting employment, this is wrong, unnecessary and will cost more money than it will save it.

The EPSU campaign will run until the European elections of 2014 building upon national tax justice networks and expertise of tax staff, naming and shaming large tax dodgers (including companies and individuals), pressing EU institutions for change, and putting forward improvements to tax collection in Europe. For information and contributions to the campaign see http://www.epsu.org/r/640

Time and location: Wednesday 7 November at 2.30 p.m. Residence Palace, Rue de la Loi 155, Room salon. Languages: English/French. Refreshments provided.

•  New research findings on why cuts in public tax services are a bounty to tax dodgers and cost more money than save it by Lionel Fulton, Labour Research Department, UK
•  EPSU public services trade union campaign: what and how? By Carola Fischbach-Pyttel, EPSU General Secretary
•  European Parliament resolution for concrete actions against tax fraud in Europe (April 2012)

EPSU press contact Pablo Sanchez Centellas psanchez@epsu.org