ALBERTO MAJOCCHI
L'armonizzazione europea in campo fiscale
N. 166
Summary - The completion of the internal market before the beginning of 1993 has revamped a fresh debate about the process of fiscal harmonisation within the EC. The White Paper prepared in 1985 by the Commission was inspired by the idea that, as far as the VAT system was concerned, the origin principle should be implemented. But the following political debate made it clear that this assumption was quite unrealistic and the final outcome represented a compromise where the destination principle has been kept alive for a transition period up to the end of 1996, while the dismantling of the fiscal barriers was still ensured together with the completion of the internal market.
A different approach has been adopted just from the beginning in the field of excises. The destination principle has been maintained, but the disappearance of border controls has been made possible by the establishment of a system and by a limited harmonisation of the rates.
While these achievements in the area of indirect taxation have been sufficient to bring about the elimination of the fiscal barriers in parallel with the completion of the internal market, very modest results have been achieved in the field of direct taxation. In particular, it seems quite relevant the failure in reaching an agreement on a proposal put forward by the Commission, targeted at implementing a common withholding tax with a 15% rate on the interests flowing from financial capital. This limited harmonisation seems to be an unavoidable step to realise an effectively integrated capital market with non distortions induced by fiscal factors.