Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – Midterm evaluation of the Fiscalis 2013 programme

With the abolition of physical and tax controls on goods crossing the EU’s internal borders, it became evident that inconsistencies between the tax systems of the EU Member States risked giving rise to: (1) distortions of competition, (2) deflection of trade or (3) erosion of EU financial resources (greater fraud and tax evasion).

It became necessary to foster intensive cooperation at all levels in indirect taxation administrations with a view to improving the functioning of taxation systems in the European Union. This was the direct rationale behind the multi-annual Community action programmes in the field of taxation: Matthaeus-Tax established in 1993, Fiscalis (1998-2002), Fiscalis 2003-2007 and Fiscalis 2013.

Fiscalis 2013 is the latest in this series of Community programmes, which help to ensure the proper functioning of the taxation systems in the internal market by increasing cooperation between participating countries, their administrations and officials.

The programme facilitates cooperation activities and processes, and the dissemination of knowledge and best practices between the national tax administrations of the Member States, candidate countries and potential candidates. These mainly take the form of joint actions such as seminars and workshops, multilateral controls, project groups, working visits, and training tools.

Moreover, Fiscalis 2013, which covers the period 2007 to 2013, continues to place particular emphasis on IT-supported information exchange systems as the foundation of cooperation between the Member States. About 70% of the budget was spent on these systems. The remaining 30% was invested in training and cooperation activities for national tax officials.

Under Article 19 (1) of the Fiscalis 2013 Decision the programme is subject to a midterm evaluation carried out by the Commission based on input from the Member States. In order to ensure consistent methodology and coherent approach to the evaluation, the evaluation was contracted out to an external consultant with a specific expertise in carrying out evaluations, 'Ramboll Management'. Commission staff and participating countries have since then guided and supported the work of the consultants by means of a Steering Group which met repeatedly throughout the course of the project.

This report, adopted by the Commission, meets the obligation to communicate the results of the midterm evaluation to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee, and the Committee of the Regions. The final evaluation report by the external consultants is available for download at the Europa website of DG TAXUD [see Related URLs].

EUR-Lex: COM(2011)538: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2011:538:FIN

Ramboll Management Consulting: Mid-term evaluation of Fiscalis 2013 http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/common/publications/studies/fiscalis2013_mid_term_report_en.pdf

European Commission: DG Taxation and Customs Union https://ec.europa.eu/info/departments/taxation-and-customs-union_en

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