Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation clarifying Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns principles for recording taxes and social contributions
C 21 E/68 EN Official Journal of the European Communities 25. 1. 2000 Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation clarifying Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns principles for recording taxes and social contributions (2000/C 21 E/14) COM(1999) 488 final - 1999/0200(COD) (Submitted by the Commission on 18 October 1999) THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB), set up by Decision 91/115/EEC, have been consulted. Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 285 thereof, HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, Having regard to the opinion of Committee, the Economic and Social Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty, Whereas: common standards, definitions, (1) Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on the European System of national and regional accounts in the Community (ESA 95) contains the reference framework classifications, and of the accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of Member States the requirements of to obtain comparable European Community, results between Member States; the statistical in order for (2) Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 sets the conditions under which the Commission may adopt amendments to the ESA 95 methodology which are intended to clarify and improve its content; (3) The condition according to which the Commission cannot in the present case, change underlying concepts is not, clearly respected; (4) It is therefore necessary clarifications concerning the recording of taxes and social contributions in ESA 95 to the European Parliament and to the Council; to refer the (5) Article 2 of the protocol on the excessive deficit procedure the relating to Article 104 of government deficit means net borrowing of the general government sector as defined in the European System of Integrated Economic Accounts (ESA); the Treaty states that (6) In cases in which ESA 95 cannot ensure a comparable and transparent solution across the Member States, reference should be made to the principles of economic accounts as outlined in the world-wide System of National in the case the relevant SNA para- Accounts (SNA 93), graphs being 7. 60 and 8. 50; (7) The Statistical Programme Committee, set up by Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom, and the Committee on Monetary, Article 1 Purpose The purpose of this Regulation is to establish common prin- ciples clarifying the content of ESA 95 as concerns taxes and social contributions in order to ensure comparability and trans- parency among the Member States. Article 2 General principles Taxes and social contributions recorded in the system shall not include amounts unlikely to be collected. Accordingly, system on an accrual basis, reasonable amount of actually received. taxes and social contributions recorded in the shall be equivalent over a time to the corresponding amounts Article 3 Treatment of taxes and social contributions in the accounts Taxes and social contributions recorded in the accounts may be derived from two sources: cash receipts or amounts evidenced by assessments and declarations. (a) If assessments and declarations are used, the amounts shall be adjusted by a coefficient reflecting assessments never collected. The coefficients shall be estimated on the basis of past experience in respect of assessed amounts never collected. They shall be specific to different types of taxes and social contributions. The determination of these coef- ficients shall be country specific, the method being cleared with the Commission (Eurostat) beforehand. (b) If cash receipts are used, they shall be time adjusted so that the cash is attributed when the activity took place to generate the tax liability (or when the amount of tax was determined, some income taxes). This adjustment may be based on the average time difference between the activity (or the determination of the amount of tax) and cash tax receipt. in the case of 25. 1. 2000 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 21 E/69 Article 4 Balancing expenditures, output and incomes in the accounts In order to balance the GDP based on expenditures with the GPD based on output, any taxes on production that are included in the market price of goods and services purchased but which, due to evasion, bankruptcy or other causes, are in fact never paid by the seller to the government, shall be the seller. A similar included in the operating surplus of treatment shall be applied when calculating GDP based on incomes to income taxes or social contributions that are collected from employees but never paid by employers to the government. Article 5 Verification The methods applied and the possible revisions shall be 3. subject to agreement between each Member State concerned and the Commission (Eurostat). 4. The Commission (Eurostat) will keep the SPC, the CMFB and the GNP Committee (Gross National Product) informed of the description of the methods and the calculation of the afore- mentioned coefficients. Article 6 Implementation The Commission, within 6 months of the adoption of the present Regulation, will introduce in the text of ESA 95, in the context of the procedure defined at the Article 2(2) of the Regulation (EC) No 2223/96, the changes needed for the application of the present Regulation. The Commission (Eurostat) will verify the implementation the principles laid down in the present Regulation by 1. of Member States. Article 7 Entry into force 2. From 2000 onwards, Member States will provide to the Commission (Eurostat) before the end of each year, a detailed description of the methods they plan to use for the different categories of to taxes and social contributions implement the present Regulation. in order This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following its publication in the Official Journal of the European Commun- ities. This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States