Fighting tax evasion and tax fraud was one of the key themes of the European Council meeting last month. Extending automatic exchange of information at both EU and global level is a priority task in this fight; according to the Council in the summit conclusions. To this end, amendments to the Directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation will be proposed by the Commission in June in order for the automatic exchange of information to cover a full range of income.

Building on the agreement reached by the Council at a meeting earlier in May negotiations will begin to ensure that Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Andorra and San Marino continue to apply measures equivalent to those in the EU.

At last month's meeting, the Council also called for the adoption of the revised Savings Directive before the end of the year.

The Council also called for rapid progress on a number of other issues which included:

• Member States to give priority to the concrete follow-up to the Action Plan on strengthening the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion.
• Adoption of VAT Directives on the quick reaction mechanism and on the reverse charge mechanism by the end of June 2013.
• Further work to ensure that third countries, including developing countries, meet appropriate standards of good governance in tax matters.
• Efforts are required to respond to the challenges of taxation in the digital economy, taking full account of on-going work in the OECD.

Further details on the meeting of the European Council are set out in the Conclusion Document available on the Europa website www.europa.eu