June 1 could mark the beginning of a new era for fairer taxation in Europe.

As a trade union organisation speaking for duly tax-paying workers, as a voice of tax administration personnel across the Europe, as a longstanding member of the European Commission’ advisory expert Platform for Tax Good Governance: For years, CESI has been calling for the obligation of big multinational companies to report to tax authorities on where they make their profits and where they pay their taxes.

On June 1, the European Parliament and the Council finally agreed on a new directive on such a so-called country-by-country-reporting – 5 years after the European Commission had tabled a proposal, in 2016.

In the future, multinationals and their subsidiaries with annual revenues of over EUR 750 million, and which are active in more than one country, will need to publish and make accessible the amount of taxes they pay in each Member State. The tax transparency reports will also extend to the EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions outside the EU (the so-called EU black list of tax havens).

This will not only shed some light on taxes being lost to some of the world’s tax havens but also increase transparency in corporate taxation within the EU. It could be a game changer that will allow for an effective and fair taxation of multinational companies, which currently engage in extensive profit-shifting to countries where they pay little taxes – a legal form of avoidance which costs countries dear: According to estimates, globally up to €200 billion are lost each year due to profit-shifting, equaling up to 10% of the corporate income tax revenue. Big money that could be spent on better public administrations, education and health care systems and further public services – or on lower income taxation for workers.

With country-by-country reporting in place, we as CESI will push for a common corporate tax base (CCTB) – a single set of rules that cross-border companies could use to calculate their taxable profits in the EU – or afterwards a common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB), a mechanism according to which consolidated taxable profits of a company would be shared between the Member States in which it is active, with each Member State then taxing its share of the profits at its own national tax rate. It would be a leap forward for fair and effective taxation also by multinational companies.

On CCTB and CCCTB, by the way, legislative proposals of the European Commission have also been on the table … since 2011 … and blocked by Council since then. The reason: the EU Treaties prescribe unanimity voting in taxation policies, which means that individual Member States can veto any new legislation on the matter. Since the Conference on the Future of Europe  is currently collecting ideas for a better functioning and more effective policy delivery of the EU, it could be the right moment to bring forward again our proposal to move from unanimous to qualified majority voting in EU taxation policy.

CESI has been speaking up for this for long. Worker-taxpayers would benefit from it.