PensionsEurope and 22 other European business and financial associations have issued a joint statement calling for an ambitious EU Tax Simplification Package that reduces administrative burden and supports Europe’s competitiveness.

The statement argued that the European Commission’s taxation package offered an opportunity to save European businesses around €8bn a year.

It called for unnecessary administrative burdens to be reduced through coherent and proportionate tax rules that were free from duplication, contributing to the EU’s commitment to reduce companies’ administrative burdens by 25 per cent.

The associations also said that barriers to cross-border investment should be removed, arguing that withholding tax procedures should not create unnecessary obstacles to investment within the single market, including through taxes that are collected only to be refunded.

The commission was urged to avoid duplicative reporting requirements and ensure timely and effective implementation.

The associations called on member states to reach an agreement that preserved the ambition of the package while delivering genuine simplification.

They noted that, for pension funds and other long-term institutional investors, simpler and more coherent tax rules could help reduce administrative burden and support a more efficient investment environment across the EU.

“Some of today’s costs are hard to justify,” the statement said. “Tax collected only to be refunded does not strengthen the tax base; it simply creates costs for businesses and administrations alike.

“Withholding taxes should not remain barriers to investment within the single market. Businesses should not have to provide information that tax administrations already hold. And benefits that can be delivered sooner should not be unnecessarily delayed by a decade.

“Revenue, safeguards and implementation will have to be dealt with in the negotiations. None of them justifies recreating the complexity the package was designed to remove.

“What emerges from the negotiations should be simpler than what we have today, and no less ambitious than what was proposed.”

Signatories to the joint statement included PensionsEurope, EFAMA, BusinessEurope, ETAF, and EBF.

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