As the European elections will be held on Sunday, May 26, Tax Justice Europe (TJ-E), the European regional hub of the Global Alliance for Tax Justice launched the TJ-E tax justice election pledge, arguing “Now it’s time to urge the candidates to take the pledge and commit to supporting our collective priorities.”
”I pledge to fight for tax justice as a Member of the European Parliament.”
”Zavezujem se, da se bom kot poslanec/poslanka Evropskega parlamenta
boril/a za davčno pravičnost.”
“Se eletto Membro del Parlamento Europe,
io mi impegno a combattere per la giustizia fiscale”
The pledge, so far available in Polish, Swedish, Slovenian, Hungarian, Italian, English, German and French, states:
« By signing this pledge, I support Making Multinationals Pay Their Share of Tax, and commit to advocating for:
- Transparency rules for all large multinational companies through public country by country reporting, to let citizens see where multinational corporations have business activity, and what they pay in tax in each country where they operate;
- Replacing the outdated corporate tax system with a system that treats each multinational corporation as one entity for tax purposes and allocates taxing rights to countries based on the level of value creation and economic activity that the corporation has in each country. This system should include a minimum effective corporate tax rate, and avoid introducing new mechanisms that can be abused by multinational corporations to dodge taxes;
- An inclusive, transparent global tax reform, by supporting the establishment of an intergovernmental tax commission under the auspices of the United Nations, where all developed and developing countries can participate on an equal footing in the reform of global tax standards;
- Strong protection of tax whistle-blowers and journalists, to protect those who act in the public interest, including those who disclose large-scale tax avoidance or tax evasion. This protection must include both private and public sector employees;
- Fair, progressive, and gender responsive tax systems, and an end to harmful tax practices, tax havens and the race to the bottom. This includes thorough impact assessments to ensure that EU tax policies do not have negative impacts on gender equality or developing countries. »
As a citizen, taking-action is simple. Visit https://taxpledge.eu scrolling to your country’s candidate and clicking the email or twitter icon. These will provide a template tweet or email for you to send or amend as you’d like.
It is also time to Contact the political groups in your country and ask them to urge their candidates to support the pledge.
Of course, encourage others to take-action: Ask your members, staff, activists, allies, friends and family to take-action on the pledge website, to tweet and email the candidates in your country.
If you are able to do so, you can also translate the text into your language: The more languages we have, the more citizens are empowered to engage their candidates. Please translate this short text and return it to TJ-E’s Olivia Lally.
