Have Member States, businesses and the European Institutions been consulted on this Home State Taxation idea?
Yes. The Commission services initiated a public consultation process on this idea in 2004. The consultation process included the organisation of a workshop, a public on-line consultation, bilateral meetings and the distribution of a questionnaire, all of them with the relevant stakeholders (i.e. business and accountancy/tax experts, national and European federations and organisations as well as some academics). Most interested parties considered corporate taxation as an important obstacle to cross-border expansion of SMEs and acknowledged the potential and positive contribution of the HST approach for helping and encouraging their economic activities in other Member States. The European Parliament and Economic and Social Committee also supported the idea of Home State Taxation for SMEs on a pilot basis and invited the Commission to take this concept forward.
