The European Commission has issued another public consultation on a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), an idea which has failed every significant hurdle since its inception in 2000. Nevertheless because it would add to the tax charge of every exporting Irish business if it did go ahead, we would encourage Chartered Accountants to make a response.

The idea behind a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base is that groups of companies in Europe would not be taxed in accordance with the rules of their country of residence. Instead the group as a whole would be taxed under a hybrid set of rules (the “Common Base” of the title), but tax would be paid in the countries of operation of the group in proportion to capital invested, employment and sales (the “Consolidated” of the title). This would complicate further the already complicated computation of taxable profits, while also ensuring that smaller economies like Ireland lose out on their fair share of tax revenues.

If you do decide to respond to this consultation, it shouldn’t take too much of your time. The consultation process takes the form of an online survey (like the kind of thing you’d see on a hotel booking website) and are mainly tick the box in nature. In fact if you do not complete the survey online, the Commission might not consider your responses. Unfortunately the questions are quite loaded and by and large they assume that survey respondents are in favour of CCCTB.

The critical question may be at Part 4 of the survey, which states “The Commission believes that the CCCTB system can be an effective tool against aggressive tax planning and at the same time retain its attractiveness to the business”. This is the only clear-cut instance in the survey where respondents can signal their agreement or disagreement with the CCCTB project.

The Institute has published several resources over the years on CCCTB. It is reflective of how little progress has been made by the EU Commission on the issue over the years that our Briefing Document of April 2010 is still relevant as a resource, should you wish to complete the survey. Survey responses will be accepted up until 8 January next.