 Hello, and welcome to Davos and this special debate from the World Economic Forum on France 24. I'm Stephen Carroll. We're here to talk about an issue that goes to the heart of the rise in populist movements around the world, that there's one rule for the rich, and another for everyone else. The Panama Papers revealed how some of the world's wealthiest people and companies were using tax havens to hide income from their home country authorities. The revelations have raised difficult questions about transparency in a globalized economy and how best individual countries can ensure they're getting their fair share from corporations that make massive profits on their territory. This is a problem that concerns governments, companies, institutions, and citizens. And to talk about it, I'm joined by a panel of distinguished guests. On my left, Isabel Samala de Alvarado, the vice president of Panama. Thank you very much for being with us. Valdez Dombrovsky, vice president of the European Commission with responsibility for financial services in the euro. Bia Nima, executive director of Oxfam International. And Helgoria, secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD. And Mateusz Moriński, deputy prime minister and finance minister of Poland. Thank you from all of us for being here with us. I'd like to start with a figure, if I may, $240 billion. That's what the OECD estimates. Countries are losing in tax revenues every year from profit shifting by multinationals. And Helgoria, we have 100 countries signed up now to the exchange of information, 100 countries and jurisdictions, I should say, where they have assets, the profits of their reporting, how many employees they have. Are these rules making a difference? Absolutely. And that includes Panama, by the way, which is going to, has already joined us, has already signed, now they're in ratification of their instrument. So a message to the Panamanian Congress, please, you know, pass the law. Yes, it'll make a difference. And let me tell you why. Because we have 70 billion have already been received. It's not about the potential. 70 billion have already in the coffers of the countries participating in the system, just with the automatic exchange of information by individuals. So know where to hide. 130 jurisdictions, you know, more than 100 countries committed to the process. Then multinationals, where the potential of loss is up to 240. So we have to be making inroads into the 240 billion. Then getting the developing countries to also enjoy the benefits of these packages and these new proceedings, these new findings, these new discoveries. And the technology involved, the method involved, and last but not least, what we call tax certainty. That means the messaging that you can't be changing the tax system all the time. Complying with the tax system does not mean you change it. Complying with the tax system means you enforce it. And as I said, we already have 70 billion worth so far. Why? Because people now understand it's inevitable. That next September, countries can start exchanging automatic exchange of information. And therefore, the authorities are going to get all the information. Did you report to them? Well, yes, no problem. Did you not report to them? Then you're going to get an invitation to have a cup of tea. So it's a dramatic transformation of the tax regime, of the international tax regime. And let me quote President Putin. Why? Because we were in St. Petersburg when we launched this in the G20. And he was chairing. He said, it is the most dramatic transformation, the most revolutionary transformation in the international tax regime in 100 years. Not a bad start. OK, Vice President Panama has obviously come in for an awful lot of attention since the Panama Papers were released. What's been your experience since then? And what have you been taking action on? Let me begin by saying and thank you for the opportunity of sharing our ideas. Panama understands, and as a government authority, we understand clearly the importance of taxes to finance development, to do what we have to do. And we understand not only the importance of collecting taxes for our country's purpose, but the importance of aiding other countries to ensure that there is no evasion and to cooperate in that light. And I must say, ever since we took office two and a half years ago, we have established a very clear roadmap. And we have taken every measure that we needed to be taken. And this was way before the Panama Papers, I must say, when we assumed office two and a half years ago. Panama was far behind in many areas, including that we were, for example, in the FATF's gray list. And we established a roadmap very aggressive. And we passed all the legislation. We needed to pass within nine months with the Congress where we are a minority. And we were able to be removed from FATF's gray list. And before the Panama Papers, President Varela announced at the General Assembly of the United Nations Panama's commitment to automatic exchange of information. And then this leak came which pointed out a global problem, a global problem to which Panama needs to participate in the solution and the rest of the world needs to participate in the solution. And it just made us run faster that we were already running. And I am very happy to say that today there is not one issue pending in Panama's steps in order to comply with the highest standards internationally. So we have taken all the measures that needed to be taken. We are concentrated as well in the strengthening of our institutions. And we are also concerned, and this is an issue that we wish would be discussed further, how to ensure that this global effort takes into consideration the reality of developing countries and the necessity of the financing for development and to ensure that we do not unintendedly have consequences on the financing for development, which is very important. This is a good point to go to you, Winnie. I'm going to read you a quote of something that you said last September. You said that abuse by corporates and individuals leads to poor countries losing $170 billion in desperately needed revenues each year. This is a problem that often focuses on the developed countries, but the impact really is much more profound on developing countries. Absolutely. And in fact, we need to look at this problem of tax dodging in connection with the issue of rising inequality. They are connected. And there's a human rights issue there. We have to see it as such. Because take a country like Kenya. Kenya is losing $1.1 billion every year through tax incentives and tax exemptions, just that loophole. Tax incentives, $1.1 billion. That's equal to almost double its health budget. And that's a country where 1 in 40 children die at childbirth. So it's really a human rights issue. And yes, there's been progress. But I want to say I can't compete with Angeline's strength of voice. But in opinions, I feel that we differ here. There's progress. There's progress. The BEPS process, the OECD-led process, is a step in the right direction. But we have a long way to go. First of all, the developing countries who are not at the table, their contributions is only second-class contribution. While notorious tax havens like Switzerland had a seat at the table. So the agenda that was covered doesn't touch the issues that are hurting the developing countries. For example, this harmful tax, corporate tax competition that's making the developing countries lose so much as they risk to the bottom to attract investment. That's not touched. And many other issues. So and if you think about harmful tax competition, it's like if you can't dodge taxes, then you pay the governments to lower the tax rate. So it's just another way of dodging. And unless we can have another process, a second-generation process of looking at all the issues, including the sectors where developing countries lose most, like mining, like agriculture, and so on, we are not getting to the root of the problem. So tax havens are a big one that we need to close on. And I think the reforms that are happening are moving us there. But again, we need to move farther. We need public country by country reporting, for example. If this transparency is going to be useful for controlling tax avoidance. So yes, we are moving. But no, not fast enough and not broadly enough. OK. I'll come back to how I worry about some of those concerns in a moment. Commissioner, I'd like to turn to you next. The EU has a lot of influence in this area. It's a massive market. Multinatials will obey rules that you lay down. A tax avoidance director was agreed last June. Does it go far enough, do you think? Well, indeed, EU takes this issue of fighting tax avoidance very seriously. And I would say EU has been in a forefront of implementing initiatives set out by the OECD BEPS initiative, fight against base-roasing and profit shifting. And in a number of areas, we're actually moving further than OECD BEPS initiative has prescribed in terms of information exchange among tax administrations within the EU. We took more comprehensive approach. We are strongly addressing bank secrecy, what EU residents' savings are in different countries. Most recent agreements are with Switzerland, with Andorra, with Monaco. We're setting up now working towards EU list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. Currently, we have 28 national lists. And working also in a number of other directions. And as regards the issue mentioned of country by country reporting, indeed, European Commission has proposed for EU basically being the first EU addition, which would help public country by country reporting by multinationals on how much corporate taxes paid in which EU country, how much is paid aggregately in the rest of the world. And then coming back country by country on so-called non-cooperative tax jurisdictions. Because indeed, we think that also public transparency can change behavior of certain companies and can help to change certain practices also through the public pressure. Minister Moriecki, Poland is one of the countries that has to sign up and obey, of course, all these rules that are being come up with by the European Commission. Are you finding that this is a doable situation for you? Are you able to put these rules into practice? And do you think they're going to be effective? Not only I think that these rules are doable, but we think that many of those rules are being implemented or being proposed and then implemented too little, too late. We are actually the calculation of the European Commission of the tax evasion on us on Poland is up to 40 something billions lot is, which is more than $10 billion. Some 8% or 7% of all the tax revenues from Poland. So it's a huge amount of money. And I would agree with that we need that we have to tackle this much more decisively. So when there is a question here posed in the preamble of this panel, how should governments and corporations and OECD, how should we tackle all this? I would say much more decisively and much more quickly because middle income countries and frontier markets as we call them today and emerging markets as we call them today and yesterday, they are losing huge money. I think by the way that this figure which was mentioned here is underestimated because when I calculate all the countries losses, the figure adds up to a much higher figure. Like one example, what are the three countries, what are the three countries which invested mostly in terms of FDI into the European Union? Number one, the United States of America, which is quite natural, very big economy and so on. Number two, Switzerland, which is probably less natural, even the size of economy and so on. Number three, Bermuda. Now, which are the three countries where there was the highest amount of investment from the EU to those countries? Exactly the same. The United States, Switzerland and Bermuda. So if this is not huge global tax evasion, I don't know what is. So I'm very happy that here at Davos for the first time we so strongly started to talk about inclusive growth and so on, but I would emphasize that the inequality factor and imbalances and tax evasion is the triangle or the Bermuda triangle, maybe. And we have to find a solution for this. One aspect which was not mentioned in this discussion is the level playing field. We observe this a lot in Poland. We have quite a vibrant, small and meat-sized community companies generating some 65% of GDP and 70% of employment. And for them, in each particular sectors, multinationals which avoid taxes and they do all sorts of different Dutch, Irish sandwiches and other legal schemes, or illegal, legal, illegal, we don't know. They really are depriving all the 97% of all the companies, the small and meat-sized companies, of level playing field. So I'm not happy with the pace which the European Union proposed in terms of tax erosion and profit shifting and so on because I think this is simply a tax on poorer countries and middle-income countries and the richer countries are becoming more and more rich because the 97% of all the multinationals have location over there. So in your question, there was very interesting observation that given, which you asked, Mr. Dombrovsky, given the power of the EU, couldn't you build this framework a little bit more quickly? Exactly. If the EU and the United States were speaking with the same voice, at least 60% of the global GDP or about this, it would be a very strong voice towards a much more fair share type of regime. Commissioner, can this be done faster? Well, certainly we can. But let me explain a little bit the institutional structure on taxation in the EU. It's European Commission, which comes up with the proposals for directives, for regulations. And then it requires in a field of taxation unanimous support of EU member states. So in a sense, I can head back to the question to Mr. Dombrovsky, can member states agree quickly to the European Commission proposals? But I would say the momentum is there. Panama leaks was certainly one important element, but this momentum was actually there already before because as a response to the crisis, many EU member states had to do fiscal adjustment. And this inevitably raises this question, well, we now need to do fiscal adjustment, take very painful measures. And how comes we see that profit is shifted somewhere outside? And we really want to follow this principle that corporate tax is paid where real economic activity takes place. OK, we're going to take a short break on that note. Please do join us after the news headlines for more from the World Economic Forum in Davos. OK, so now we'll start again. Could you, Commissioner, would you mind taking off your badge? Sorry. Yeah. Have a note from above. OK. It feels like you got one and the rest of us didn't. A little shiny, yeah. That was the one. It's an identity crisis. OK, we're ready to go again. Mexico. Welcome back to the World Economic Forum in Davos and this special debate on France 24. We're discussing how best to tax multinationals and get countries their fair share from these companies that, of course, create valuable investment and jobs around the world. I'd like to turn to another quote now from Joseph Sticklets and Mark Piaf. They have a report on this called Overcoming the Shadding Economy. They say the United States and Europe have an obligation to force financial centers to comply with global transparency standards. Leadership that many parts of the world are expecting from these countries, Vice President. Do you think that it is a responsibility for them to lead in this area? Responsibility from where? From the United States and from the European Union. I think it's a global responsibility where each of us have our own share and our own possibilities. And I wish to take on what has already been said on including into the discussion of the standards the different views. I think that's something that's lacking. That's something that we need to work on. It makes it harder, definitely, when you are not a part of the definition of the standards. And therefore, one vision of the problem is being exposed in the discussion. And another vision that is as valuable, as important, is not placed in the table. And also, in that light, part of our vision of the problem and the issue of multinationals has been mentioned. What happens when multinationals go to third world countries, to developing countries that are thriving to have them establish their operations? And they're going to have operations. And they're going to hire people and everything else. But they insist on negotiating tax breaks. Tax breaks that local companies do not have. That sort of analysis needs to be brought into the discussion as well. And I know it's part of the discussion with BEPS, which Panama has also joined. And I think that will allow us to be part of the discussion, which is also what we're looking for. Mr. Greer, you've been involved in policy development in this area. The point raised both by Winnie and the vice president of developing countries to the table to discuss developing these proposals. Is there a way to do that? Let me tell you, just in 2008, only eight, nine years ago, there were 30 agreements to exchange tax information. Today, there are 3,500. So first of all, second, we are going to modify them all, including the agreements that were signed to go into the multilateral mode to do the multinational companies and their country by country reporting. The principle is very simple. What do you get your profits? Pay your taxes. There may be some deductions, but it's a fairly straightforward principle. And we just had an example of how difficult this can get. The Apple story in the European Union, well, it transpired that it was 0.05% taxes. Yeah, 0.05% or whatever. So you're basically talking about 1.20% or whatever it is. Nothing. That's it. No payment of taxes. All the countries in the world put it together, took it to Ireland. They got a ruling there that said, no, this is not local money. And then they were fined $13 billion because they said this is state aid. Not on the tax side, by the way. But the question is now going forward, whatever the result of that litigation will be. It could not happen again. Why? Because we have dismantled. And Prime Minister Kenny, the Taoiseach, was leading the charge to dismantle the facilities in Ireland that gave rise to this situation, the same thing in the Netherlands, and the same thing in the UK. And you mentioned the United States. Well, you saw that President Obama would be in second order. Let's see what happens on the new administration because they have to legislate that. But the question is, yes, there's been massive progress. Now, in terms of incorporating the developing countries, this is the most productive and the most interesting part of the work because we created something tax inspectors without borders, together with Helen Clark, the UNDP. Because they're on the ground, they're working everywhere else. We get the expertise. We help them, experts around the world, move to the places where the tax inspectors of the country are talking to the companies. This is not a school. This is not an institute. And lo and behold, we spend a few thousand in airfares, whatever, and you get a few million back. Because all they got to do is the experts tell the multinational, say, for heaven's sake, let's not play games. You know what this is about. This is a loophole. You're abusing the system. And we've gotten, in the case of Kenya, in the case of Colombia, the case of Botswana, the case of Zimbabwe, but now, more interestingly, we signed agreements in Nairobi very recently between Kenya now providing the expertise to Zimbabwe. So it's no longer just the OECD or the UNDP, whatever, providing, but also the developing countries working among themselves. So we need to write in the sense that this is just starting. And we're all very aware of the need to generalize it. But the promise is enormous, and the reality on the ground is it yields 1,000 to one. So it looks like it's enormously productive, and the potential is very great, and that it could really help these developing countries to pick up a billion or two in terms of the revenue. Winnie-Vinny, I think you have a point to make on that. Yes, I want to agree. But also to insist that we do not make issues here. There is capacity for tax administration, tax collection. And yes, many developing countries lack that capacity. And yes, OECD and others have put some good resources towards increasing that capacity to go and collect taxes. But that's not the same as tax policy, policy where which is set rules that are set that allow loopholes for tax dodging. That must be addressed, and that's not addressed through capacity building of tax collectors. So the progress that is being made, what you mentioned, the Europeans and the Americans on transparency, is good. But we say it doesn't go far enough. It doesn't go far enough, for example, to require public country by country reporting. Because if people cannot know what firms are doing, then you're not really going to get that secrecy out that will lead to taxing them just fairly. Then again, it doesn't address the other problems that I mentioned earlier of low corporate tax rates. So that's in the area of policy. And that's why we pushed hard, and OECD agreed that a second round of corporate tax reforms starts. But within on a platform that's more inclusive, where the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, and the UN come together, bring all countries to the table, and negotiate now another generation of reforms that will lead to closing these loopholes. Can I just chip in, because it's... But that process hasn't moved. What Winnie said is very important. We already have the World Bank and the UN and the IMF on board, and Oxfam is pointing the way. But the question is evolving. Put this in a broader agenda. We are still suffering eight years after the crisis. Low growth, high unemployment, growing inequalities, and a destruction of trust. Among the many reasons why people don't blame presidents and vice presidents and prime ministers and parliaments and political parties and multinationals and banking systems, et cetera, is the fact that people are disenchanted. They feel disenfranchised. They don't vote. Therefore, we lose Brexit. They don't vote. Therefore, we lose the Italian referendum. They don't vote. Therefore, we lose the Colombian referendum. And they only go half of them go and vote in the United States. And there's a surprise, a result, et cetera. Is the question that if people perceive that the taxes are not being collected from everybody? The man on the street, middle class, small and medium enterprise feel they are the only ones that are being taxed and that the rich guys go to the tax havens and the multinational enterprises don't pay at all. This is not an economic. This is not even an ethical. This is not even a moral question. This is a political issue of the greatest consequence. Today, the level of tolerance has dramatically lowered because of the crisis. And last but not least, countries need the money. That's also an incentive. Minister Moriasky, I'd like to come to you because you made a point earlier about level playing fields and ensuring that everyone has a, you know, that's what public country by country reporting would give us in an extent. Is there a danger that the EU could put itself at a competitive disadvantage if it's obliging higher standards on its members than other countries around the world? I think theoretically it could be a danger because some countries like tax havens countries, they could abuse this or they could use this time horizon to capture some new business. But I think this is in all our interest to work out rules or the common denominator, which is then being observed by most of the countries. And if the EU and the US will have the same rules, I'm then more calmer about the rest of the world. But also, we are in the era of savings glad. So I'd like to present this other thought, which Anhel started, I will build on this. And we have investment gap. In the European Union, we say we have 400 billion euro investment gap. In the US, at least 200 billion, the rest of the world. So we have almost a trillion of investment gap. And normally, what companies do in the situation where they use their cash piles and then they invest this usually. But today, over the last couple of years, we see that they don't invest. So that's one element of my logic, which I will close in one minute. The other element is monetary policy versus fiscal policy. Monetary policy does not have too much of maneuver anymore. Seven or eight years of quantitative easing, one, two, infinite. OK, it probably saved us from another great depression. But it's not working as we would have wished for today. So we now start talking again about fiscal policy, monetary policy is not working, which is right because the private economy is not investing. It's hoarding cash and share buybacks and all sorts of other activities, but not so much productive for the real economy, I mean. And then they go to tax haven to actually not have it taxed. So what's the reply for this from the point of view of the crisis, which is now transforming, but we are not yet finished with that. And we are into the 10th year of the crisis in August. And the response to this is fiscal policy, but fiscal policy has to be based on solid tax base. And the solid tax base has to be repaired. This is my story. And this is why this is so important not only for the middle income countries for emerging markets, frontier countries, very poor countries, and so on. It's important for the rest of the world because the rich world has a huge investment gap. And to overcome this investment gap, as many people are saying more and more, including President-elect Trump, fiscal policy has to kick in. We've had a question from one of our viewers on Facebook Live. What can we do about tax havens? Won't there always be a race to the bottom when it comes to tax affairs? This also wraps into, of course, something that we heard from Theresa May earlier this week when she was talking about a threat that if they didn't get the right deal from the European Union that they would look at remodeling their business model, perhaps changing their corporate tax system. Commissioner, would you like to respond to that? Well, certainly there are things which can be done. And of course it helps if it's being done at the global level so that those tax havens really feel the pressure. So there's a possibility to tax each transaction with a tax haven at a certain fixed rate, basically eliminating these artificial advantages which is being created. There are possibilities actually to look closer at companies' practices when they are using tax havens in their works. There are possibilities also in a treaties on avoidance of double taxation to introduce as we are doing or suggesting now in the European Union the principle of effective taxation so that not only something is subject to taxation in another country of tax treaty, but it's actually effectively taxed and there's a difference that it can be subject to taxation and then taxed at zero rate or very small rate. So we are also introducing this principle of effective taxation. So I think there are absolutely the ways to deal with this and also the EU work now on setting up this list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions will help to add pressure to those jurisdictions. Okay, Vice President, you were on strike on watching this. Yes, I wanted to add at point that because I think it's then again relevant to those countries that abide by the rules and the standards but are not part of the table and I want to raise a question of a governing body or not to follow up on these things. What happens and that's the case of Panama, for example, when a country places Panama on a list without basis and without reason and we can prove it but there is an interpretation to it. Who defines is Panama compliant or is Panama not compliant? These are things where some countries are at a disadvantage particularly if we're not sitting at the table and we have that particular situation right now with a country with which we have an agenda, bilateral agenda. These are questions that we need to ask because we cannot let the effort to prevent tax evasion go against the interest of countries in general just for the sake of it. And there are issues of power here as well that need to be brought to the table. Speaking of power, I mean the United States has a rather large power in this and we're looking at a very uncertain future as to what the United States will do next. Anagoria, do you have hopes for the Trump administration and how they're gonna approach this problem? Well, first of all, what they're doing already is important and that is there was a deliberate signal and an announcement that the United States would dismantle facilities like Delaware and these types of facilities which were considered to be tax havens, in fact. And it was interesting that you had the tax havens inside the countries which were championing the cause of tax transparency. The same thing happened with the UK. There was a very, very intense dialogue with the UK in which they started to dismantle these facilities with a trust, et cetera, et cetera. And then after the question of the Panama papers you had a big discussion about beneficial ownership in general, not with the Panamanians, but in general, the Panamanians is compliant, the question is, then what do you do with the beneficial ownership discussion which is different than just paying taxes because you can have an institution that says, okay, white horse securities owned by black horse securities and you never know who is the real owners and you just go and then there's the gray horse securities that owns the black horse security. And the question is, who is the ultimate owner? That can even help you track money that is money laundered or your criminal sources or whatever the person was. But let me just correct the concerns of the person that sent the message. Everybody is on board today. 130 countries are on board today. Those that are not on board will be and frankly, if you wanna put the money in the other 40 or 50 countries, but bless you, I don't give you any guarantees that you'll get it back. But the question is, we're gonna fall on like a ton of bricks on any country that tries to be too smart. And that means the Europeans are gonna fall on the ton of bricks. The Americans are gonna fall on them like a ton of bricks. And all the big economies in the world, why, because they don't want anybody try to be too smart, take the cheese away because they are practicing what we are all condemning. So that mechanism is already in place and the crunching is happening and it already happened. And by the way, let me just say Switzerland is an exemplary, you know, joined the fray and now they're fighting the good fight. You know, they had a question of perception now that has been after seven referenda or whatever it exists, Switzerland is compliant. The Swiss banks are compliant. So I just wanted to make that clear because you mentioned- That's an important point, because there's nobody here from Switzerland to defend themselves. So thank you for that. When you wanted to comment on that and I'd like to put another point to you as well. Again, coming from our Facebook viewers, will business power always outweigh political power in this? It's very important to speak about the role of business here because we're talking about, definitely it's the challenge for governments to move urgently. I want to agree with the Polish Deputy Prime Minister to address some of these gaping loopholes. And I keep insisting on the one on the race to the bottom on corporate taxation. That needs to be addressed. And it's worrying now. I mean, we've seen the promise from President-elect Trump to cut corporate tax. We heard Theresa May, Prime Minister, threatening to make Britain a little island with low tax rate on the shores of Europe. These are steps in the wrong direction. So we need this year to see progress on this corporate tax competition. But business must see this not merely as an issue of legal compliance. We want to see- And it's about big business because the corner shop where I buy bread probably pays a higher tax rate than Apple. So it's a problem of the big companies. And we want to see them take this more than an issue of legal compliance, see it as a broader obligation to society, paying their fair share so that there's money for health, for education, for creating jobs for young people, giving back, giving the contribution they should make for society to function so that their businesses can thrive. Vice President, would you be willing to put a moral obligation on companies that want to invest in Panama to make sure that they'll follow those goals? Is that something that's doable as a government? Definitely. Definitely. I think it's part of our framework as well, but I agree it's a joint effort of government, multinational organizations, and business, definitely. And in society, it's ever more claiming that and arguing for that. So I think the framework is there and we all need to work in that direction. Deputy Prime Minister, I'd like to come back to you on the issue that's been raised about Theresa May and this race to the bottom, the potential of people cutting tax rates. Does that worry you? I'm actually very happy with what the United Kingdom introduced in April of 2015, I think, was diverted profits tax, called Google tax. And France is now addressing what they call sometimes Facebook tax. Okay, so I'm less concerned with those voices that if the taxation in the Republic of Ireland is 12.2 and in the United Kingdom is on the level of 30, they are going to lower by a couple of percentage points. I'm more concerned about all the schemes, illegal, like the European Commission found out 600 transfer pricing mechanisms, 600. Sweet deals. Sweet deals. So this is really the area which worries me and not so much if this is two percentage points less or more because at the end of the day, this is a very important source of revenue for all of the countries. So I'm not so much concerned about race to the bottom. Okay, Commissioner, this is an issue that of course the European Union doesn't have autonomy over tax affairs. That is something that's the preserve of their member states, but is this something that again, moral leadership, is there a danger that if the EU takes a moral leadership in this scenario that it's going to simply force investment elsewhere? Well, as I was saying, actually EU is taking leadership and this area and a number of areas actually moving ahead of what has been agreed in OECD on BEPS and amongst the first ones actually to implement. We came with our anti-tax avoidance package already in general last year and by now a number of those proposals which we put forward is already agreed and we are coming with further proposals because what we see is that this fair taxation is one of the areas where everyone seems to agree in principle, but when it comes down to detail to practicalities, often questions emerge. And we are also coming with, if we talk about corporate taxation with a renewed proposal on common consolidated corporate tax base. Well, it has its benefits for companies in a sense that instead of dealing with 28 different tax bases in the EU, you would deal with one, but it also eliminates a whole lot of different mismatches and loopholes which can be used where the differences in tax treatment also among EU member states can be exploited to reduce your taxable base. Okay, at this point we're gonna turn to our audience for some questions. If we have somebody that can, anyone to raise their hand if I could ask just to introduce yourself before you come to any questions, the gentleman there. Thank you very much. Johan Elias, I'm Swedish. I come from a very high tax rate environment. I have a question for you, Mr. Gore. I believe the biggest tax haven on the planet is Delaware, not for Panama. He was getting all this passion. I believe also have beneficial ownership declarations which are mandatory. So why not go after the low hanging fruit which is the big western nations that provide schemes for, call it tax. Very good question and very fair. First of all, we are, and as I said, I mean, we had Endakini, the T-Shock, the Prime Minister of the Ireland, come to the OECD in front of 800 people, say, I will dismantle the system. And by God, he did. This is why I'm saying today it would not be possible regardless of where the money of Apple and others will go. I mean, the Irish are saying, search me, this is not my money. We believe it's mostly American money. But the Americans have a little thing called, you know, strike the, check the box which is impeding this money from going back to the United States. They do have to have a tax reform. The only question is will the tax reform be simply lower the taxes period, make it easy, or, which would be appropriate perhaps, and make it easy to repatriate, or the very complex more, you know, Ryan type of thing, which has very serious problems with border adjustments, et cetera, and which has problems with consistency with the WTO and trade issues, not just tax issues. But then we dismantled the double Dutch. So double Irish, gone, double Dutch, gone, you know? This is not, you know, like a hamburger, this is, you know, these are tax modalities. But then the question is in Delaware. And I mentioned this a moment ago. Mr. Robert Stack, and this is not the artist of the untouchables, this is the deputy secretary of treasurer until today, until tomorrow, maybe, you know. He said, and he announced, that they were dismantling, and it's not just Delaware, because you can do whatever you do in Delaware, you can do in practically all of the states of the United States. Delaware, you know, now, this was not easy. I once consulted President Obama about this in Loch Earn in the G7, and he said, do you remember where Vice President Biden is from? You know, Delaware, so. Question is, but the question, they have decided they're gonna go for it in dismantling. Now, problem is, they did not have the capacity to legislate because they were not, you know, coming to an agreement with the Congress on this and many other issues, so they didn't legislate. It was by executive order. Problem is, this can be reinstated by executive order also. So I think your point is fair. Let's keep an eye, because what you cannot be doing is saying, do this preaching, and then practicing, you know, exactly against what you're preaching. Let me just say, different from Baldy's here. I'll do respect. We do not claim that a homogeneous tax rate is necessarily what we're after. The Irish have 12 and a half. God bless them. The only problem is, do they charge 12 and a half to everybody? And what the Deputy Prime Minister here is saying is, 12 and a half is fine, as long as you don't have a 2% or 0.05% deal, the sweetheart deals is what is wrong. Not that the fact that you have a lower tax rate. Now I can understand why in order to avoid this competition, France and Germany are talking about homogenizing the systems, et cetera. But the point here is, you don't necessarily have to have the same rate as long as you apply to everybody within the borders of your own country. Commissioner, you want to speak? Yeah, I just wanted to do this. I just wanted to come with a factual correction and then on EU is not homogenizing, as you said, corporate tax rates. What we had been proposing now is a common consolidated tax base, but tax rates is still competent. Will remain still with it, yeah. What we are, what we call harmonizing, we are harmonizing to the extent indirect taxes, meaning taxes like value added tax, VAT exercises, but we are not harmonizing personal income tax or corporate tax rates. So just a factual correction. It's important. Deputy Prime Minister Martin. Just a little addendum to the gentleman from Sweden because the tax regime is not everything, the tax rate is not everything. I can give you an example that where are all the corporate bonds issued for Polish companies? All are issued in Sweden because you have a specific zero tax rate for corporate bonds issued in, and then wrapped in different wrappers. And then all the taxation for corporate bonds issued in Poland goes to the treasure of Sweden. So tax rate is one thing, but also different tax schemes for specific type of economic activity. This is another thing. When you ask for another. Yeah. As I listened to this discussion, I really see why we need a fundamental global corporate tax reform. 90 years ago, most business was within national borders. Now it's not so. But the corporate tax system is still intact. There have been some tinkering here and there, but it's still intact. It is really dated. We need something that responds to a globalized economy. But now we don't. So we have all the, and then we also have the added problem that big business and super rich use their money to influence economic policy, particularly tax policy. Pharmaceutical companies in the United States in 2015 spent 250 million dollars lobbying Capitol Hill, mostly on tax. Financial companies here in Europe spent 120 million euros in 2014 and 1,700 hired lobbyists in Brussels. It's all about tax. So unless we have a process through which globally, we negate, because it's highly political, unless we can negotiate some of these reforms, this tax competition I want to respectfully disagree with the prime minister is a serious one, because for some countries, they have almost no choice. They are forced down to put down their rates and they need the resources. And sometimes for reasons that are not verified by research, because sometimes investments are driven by other factors, such as a good living conditions, well-educated workforce, but there's a presumption that lower tax rates will bring investments. And this is driving many developing countries to the bottom and they need the resources. Okay, I'm going to come to all of you for your final thoughts in a moment, but just for the purpose of television, I just need to wrap up the discussion. Have you all applauded and then we can come back for everyone's conclusions. So we're just going to say, first of all, thank you to all of my guests for joining us for this special debate from the World Economic Forum. Thank you to you for watching, stay with us on France 24. Okay, and in a completely non-logical sense, I'm now going to come back and ask you for all of your final thoughts on this discussion. We've had signs that we think progress is being made in some areas, not in others still, it seems like plenty of work to do and more obstacles ahead with what we're looking at coming ahead politically in 2017. Vice President, can I start with you? What do you think we should be looking to do next in this area? Definitely what has been said of bringing all countries to the table of discussion and discussing within that framework transitional periods. Different countries are in different situations and we need to take care of national economies while we do this. We need to take care of the global issues, but we need to take care of the local challenges in each country. Bring to the table, but let's do it in a concrete way. I do not want to think that we are repeating here what happened many, many years ago when we created the Security Council. And we have spent so many years talking about the necessity of reforming the Security Council because it's a small group with a veto power and the rest of the globe is outside. I don't want to think that once again, even though we spent the past 30 years talking about the necessity to reform the Security Council and we haven't been able to, now we have created a parallel governing body that excludes two thirds of the world to define issues of fiscal policy that matter to development more and more. We need to have a framework of discussion where we can all bring our issues to the table. Commissioner. Well, I would say we would need to use this momentum which is currently there. It's there globally. It's there within the EU to fight against base erosion, to fight against profit shifting and to ensure that corporates pay their fair share of taxation, not more, but also not less. And the EU is ready to be at the forefront of this work. Thank you. Winnie, but you are inspired by that? Yes, I am. I think three things. Governments should move faster to negotiate. I want to agree with Vice President of Panama to move faster towards negotiating a new round, starting a new round of global corporate tax reforms. And the opportunity is now. The public hunger is there and it should be a response. The second is for business. For business really to be more values driven, to go beyond tax compliance and respond, align their values with their business. And I hear people like Bill Gates talking about the most important responsibility being paying their fair share of taxes. The B team is another group that I hear wants to take the lead on fair taxation. So it's important for business to stand out, support this agenda and do what's right and not just do what's legal. And lastly, I think the, and not least, the reforms that are led by the OECD through the BEPS process and those agreements should go forward because they are taking us forward too. You've got someone agreeing with you, Ana Gloria. I think the fair share notion that Valdez mentioned is absolutely crucial for political purposes, political with a capital P because of the trust agenda, it is absolutely crucial. So what do we do? We welcome the progress. We tap, you know, we pat ourselves in the back briefly for about 30 seconds and then we move on. We move on to what? Implementation, implementation, implementation. The moment you start getting those results an already 70 billion worth of results, euros, by the way. Although euros are not what they used to be, but still, you know, 70 billion euros. And then what you have is results start coming in and then you start getting the ownership. You start getting, you know, people to say, hey, my God, this is working, this is good, let's go for it. Also, to the new challenges. Beneficial ownership is not yet a discipline that we are handling as much as we do, let's say for individual taxes or for the BEPS initiative. And last but not least, let's keep keen eye on the US tax reform because it's not just about the US. It's about the success of all this architecture that we have built. And also it has to do with investment flows. It has to do with trade flows. So it's going to be a very great consequence. Deputy Prime Minister. Like the legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. once said that, I like paying taxes because with them I buy civilization. And I'm very happy with this discussion. I'm very happy that this discussion started because all change starts from, all even huge change starts from the first step. And this is the step in the right direction. All the mental change already started. Three, four years ago here in Davos, there was only talks about lowering taxes for multinationals. Here we see 2017 and we talk about fair share and bringing all to the right, into the right space. So I'm sure we live in the state of interregnum, in the state of, in the interval between the past regime and the future regime. We don't know yet how successful we are going to be. But the discussion like this one is bringing some fresh air and optimism because I think that everybody coming from completely different angles. And I myself worked for 25 years in the private business and with multinationals as well. So I think we all agree that things have to change. And the direction has been sketched here and I'm optimist about the future state of this. We all need a bit of optimism with the ear ahead. Thank you to all of you. This conversation has started. We'll hope that it will continue elsewhere after this. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.