EU gives strong signal that zero-ten will be accepted

Saturday 25th June 2011, 3:00PM BST.

Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf

THE strongest sign yet that the Island’s controversial zero-ten business tax regime is to be cleared by Europe was given this week.

The tax package took huge a step forward as a result of the outcome of a meeting of finance ministers of the 27 member states.

The European ministers issued a statement welcoming moves by the Island authorities to change aspects of the structure which are considered ‘harmful’.
And Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf is now looking forward to the Island ‘achieving a positive outcome’ by the end of the year.

At this week’s meeting, the finance ministers formally completed an assessment of the existing regime.

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1
Gary

June 25, 2011 at 4:37 pm

Strange because only this week at the Anglo-Irish summit, Nick Clegg, deputy prime minister, stated that the UK government would not endorse the 0/10 business tax regimes for Jersey and the Isle of Man

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2
tony

June 25, 2011 at 5:33 pm

But no support from UK Deputy Premier Nick Clegg as reported in Isle of Man media

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3
gino risoli

June 25, 2011 at 6:30 pm

exactly what was it that changed europes view. has the Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf given us all a heavier tax burden to achieve compliance.

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4
Gary

June 25, 2011 at 7:13 pm

The report actually states – “Jersey [has] informed the Group about the proposed legislative amendments to [its] legislation, with a view to removing any harmful elements. The Group welcomed these developments and agreed to review such legislative amendments when discussing the rollback of these harmful regimes under the Polish presidency.”

I don’t see, as Senator Ozouf says, ‘that this is the strongest sign yet that 0/10 will be given the all clear’.

Now here’s Senator Ozouf reported in the JEP in November 2010, after the last visit of the Group: -

‘EUROPEAN finance officials have raised no major concerns about Jersey’s zero-ten corporate tax rate, the Treasury Minister has said.

Senator Philip Ozouf added that the code of conduct group in Brussels, which met last week to decide whether the policy was ‘harmful’, had only commented on a minor aspect of it.

In effect, he said that no news was good news and insisted that his interpretation of the situation was correct.

Read more: http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/11/24/confusion-over-europes-view-of-zero-ten/#ixzz1QJQwVBml

And I’m sure his interpretation of the current situation is as correct as his previous!

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5
john

June 25, 2011 at 9:35 pm

Lets hope they reject 0/10 completely as it is crippling this island to fill the pockets of the business elite

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6
gino risoli

June 26, 2011 at 5:34 pm

what l fear john is that to comply would mean not to tax buisnesses at all leaving the employed sector tax payer to pick up the bill.

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7
Gary

June 27, 2011 at 3:33 pm

Gino, the whole idea of compliance, from an ECOFIN point of view, is that all businesses pay a fair rate of tax.

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