Finance ministers of G5 vow close fiscal cooperation

Xinhua, Paris :
Finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain agreed Monday to boost their fiscal cooperation enough to fight against fiscal fraud.
At a Paris meeting, French Finance Minister Michel Sapin received his counterparts Wolfgang Schauble, Pier Carlo Padoan, Luis de Guindos and George Osborne to assess their common work and hammer out future measures that could improve fiscal transparency in their countries.
In a common statement, the ministers “stressed the extreme importance of the automatic exchange of information considered as a quite effective way to fight against tax evasion.”
They also pointed to the need to find adequate ways to face “challenges related to new business models in the digital economy sector,” with “countries where these companies are working must be able to collect their fair share of taxes.”
“To this end, G5 ministers agreed on working on flexible interpretations of territoriality rules without preventing, if it appears necessary, the adoption of new concepts such as digital presence tax (tax digital presence),” the ministers detailed.
Furthermore, they urged the implementation of “anti-abuse measures,” so that “the advantages of international tax treaties should be reserved for companies that have a real economic activity.”