18 Excise duties: administrative cooperation
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16361/03
COM(03) 797
| Draft Regulation on administrative cooperation in the field of excise duties
Draft Directive amending Council Directive 77/799/EEC concerning mutual assistance by the competent authorities of the Member States in the field of direct taxation, certain excise duties and the taxation of insurance premiums and Council Directive 92/12/EEC on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products
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| Legal base | Article 95 EC; co-decision; QMV
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| Document originated | 18 December 2003
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| Deposited in Parliament | 6 January 2004
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| Department | Customs and Excise
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 22 January 2004
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | Not known
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared, but information on subsequent developments requested
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Background
18.1 The present legal basis for administrative cooperation between
Member States in the excise field is the Mutual Assistance Directive,
77/799/EEC, as applied by Council Directive 92/12/EEC which deals
with a range of general excise matters. Together these Directives
allow for certain types of information to be voluntarily exchanged
upon request. In the case of the System for the Exchange of Excise
Data, it also requires Member States to maintain, and periodically
exchange, details of authorised warehouse keepers or other persons
and premises authorised to receive excise goods in duty suspension.[35]
The document
18.2 The aim of the draft Regulation is to bring together all
mutual administrative assistance provisions relating to excise
duties in one legislative instrument. It is designed also to
strengthen administrative cooperation between Member States by
providing clearer binding rules, by devolving cooperation and
by increasing the speed and volume of information exchanges.
18.3 The most significant changes proposed are:
- clearer binding rules with
a single legal base for mutual administrative assistance and a
legal base and rules for exchanging information received from
third countries with other Member States, where permitted by that
third country;
- increasing the effectiveness of mutual assistance
by creation of a Central Liaison Office in the indirect tax administrations
of Member States, by allowing direct contact between officials
and anti-fraud units, should Member States wish to operate in
this way, by arrangements to allow the presence of officials of
one Member State in the territory of another, if both agree, and
by creating an ability to arrange simultaneous control exercises
in two or more Member States where this is likely to be more effective
than control by just one Member State;
- increasing information exchanges by providing
a deadline of three months for responses to requests for information,
with the possibility of shorter deadlines in special circumstances
where both Member States agree, by requiring an explanation and
an indication of when the requested authority will be able to
respond, in circumstances where it is not able to comply with
the agreed deadlines, and by requiring that a requested authority
respond to all requests including, if appropriate, an explanation
of why it considers that no action is warranted.
18.4 The draft Directive would amend the existing
Directives to delete references to excise from the Mutual Assistance
Directive and to delete mutual assistance provisions in the Directive
on general excise matters.
The Government's view
18.5 The Paymaster General (Dawn Primarolo) tells
us:
"The Government broadly welcomes the principles
of the proposal and the strengthening of mutual assistance provisions
in response to increasingly sophisticated excise fraud within
the Community. The Government considers that the existing information
exchange and information sharing arrangements would benefit from
further definition and clarification of roles and responsibilities.
"However, even though the proposals replace,
or amend, legislation, which was adopted under legal bases requiring
unanimous agreement, the proposed legal base is here QMV (Article
95). The Government strongly holds the view that these successor
proposals should also have a unanimity legal base."
Conclusion
18.6 The substance of the proposed legislation
is unexceptionable and we clear the document. But we do this
on the understanding that the Government will continue to oppose
the incorrect legal base cited in the drafts, challenging it before
the Court of Justice if necessary. We ask the Minister to report
back to us developments on this issue.
35 Excise goods in duty suspension are those on which
payment of excise duty due is, subject to conditions, temporarily
suspended. Back
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