You may not have thought about it before, but taxes build the world of tomorrow! New roads, schools and hospitals are all paid for with tax revenue. Collecting taxes is not easy, however, and some people and companies try to reduce the amount of tax they owe by hiding income and information from the authorities. EU countries lose an estimated €35‑€70 billion per year due to company tax avoidance. At the same time, taxes remain very complex. Businesses that operate across the EU struggle with the different national rules for calculating their tax liability and filing their tax returns.

To make sure everyone pays their fair share of taxes, the EU adopted a worldwide minimum corporate tax rate in 2022. Under the new law, each multinational company located in the EU will pay a corporate tax rate of at least 15 % in each country in which it is active – both inside and outside the EU. This minimum tax will put a stop to companies shifting profit, bring in additional tax revenue and ensure companies compete on an equal footing.

The EU has also introduced measures to make life easier for businesses, big and small, that sell goods online throughout the EU. Before, online sellers had to file a separate value added tax (VAT) return on their sales in each country where they sold goods, meaning up to 27 VAT separate returns for some sellers. This meant a lot of red tape, particularly for smaller companies. Since 2021, they can use a multilingual online portal – the EU VAT One-Stop Shop – through which they can declare and pay all the VAT collected on their e-commerce sales across the EU with a single VAT return.