Proposition 50K1947

Projet de loi portant modification des articles 53quater, 53quinquies, 53sexies et 55 du Code de la taxe sur la valeur ajoutée.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

July 16, 2002

Official page

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Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

VAT EC Directive indirect tax

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen Vooruit Ecolo PS | SP Open Vld MR FN

Party dissidents ¶

• Vincent Decroly (Ecolo) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Oct. 24, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak on this point, but before intervening I would like to ask the Government where paragraph 5 of Article 55 — the article in question — is left and what the Government intends in this regard.

In this bill?

You will see in the coordinated version, which is now provided on your initiative — I meanwhile greet the colleagues Wauters and Van der Maelen, by the way, my apologies — ...

Mr. Leterme, I have here Article 5 which says: Article 55 replaced, with the following amendments. I have a few texts that I will announce later. I have paragraph 1, paragraph 2, paragraph 3, paragraph 4 and paragraph 6.

On the connection between paragraphs 1, 2, 3 and 4, 6 and 5, I would have liked to hear from the Government whether the Government intends to amend paragraph 5 or to reconsider that connection.

I am a little surprised by your question. As the government is not present here, or rather the competent minister is not present and the case is without a report, I cannot answer either. Mr. Tavernier, I would like to postpone this a little and let the question be asked to Mr. Reynders. Mr. Leterme, I will wait a little while for one to be able to answer your question. Would you please? Are you essentially in between?

Mr. Speaker, at the moment I am given the word to hold my speech. I assume that Mr. Tavernier will answer my various questions on behalf of the Government.

Mr. Tavernier, if I may ask you to include the necessary contacts regarding the draft law, document 1947/1, on which a specific question was asked by colleague Leterme. Mr Coveliers is.

Mr. Speaker, I know nothing about this, but does your comment concern the annexes and not the text itself? Is that right?

This is a case that comes in without a report and has not been dealt with in a committee. If that is the case, the case will be returned to the committee. We are not improving here. They have to do things properly.

This text will be returned to the committee due to the bad work that has been done. I do not want improvisation.

I speak on behalf of my group. Of course, we agree that, through the amendment of the agreement concluded in 1996, which is now partly revised, it is attempted to close a tax favour, a tax backdoor that gave rise to abuse. I would like to make this clear here, but I would still like to review with the Government the opinion of the State Council regarding the retroactive functioning of the disposable part that actually interferes with our internal fiscal regulations, and to have an exchange of views on this. I think the State Council correctly notes that in its original opinion it was proposed to merge the two drafts, which is, on the one hand, the amendment that directly affects the tax law and, on the other hand, the draft law amending this tax convention. The government did not follow that track. I would like to know what arguments the government has put forward to decisively refute the comments of the State Council on this subject.

I read here the opinion of the State Council on document 1956/1 from page 9 to page 13. I have the bill here and see that it is without a report. The Minister Tavernier?

Mr. Speaker, without going into the substance of the case, I think we are dealing with a rather peculiar procedure here. Unless I have not properly followed the work in the Parliament in recent years, it seems to me that a bill is normally discussed in a committee and that when the bill passes without discussion and without report in that committee, we can actually assume that the opposition also at that time felt that no comments needed to be made and that then it is actually also considered without a thorough discussion in the plenary session. If one says in advance that one has actually passed it in the committee, then I find it for the proper order of the work in the plenary session a form of fair play, that one would give a sign and would say to intervene.

If someone in the Room asks a question, the question is asked. So is it. The Minister of Finance is looking at it.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that Mr. Tavernier is crying for help swimming cramping, but I want to tell you an anecdote. In 1997, I was a very young member of parliament who was here only a few months. One of my first discussions was about the revision of the telephone law. I then made an interruption with regard to a very prominent member of the then opposition, a member who now occupies a fairly high place in this meeting and who took the floor to challenge a number of provisions to amend the telephone bill in substance.

I had at that time considered the exaggerated euvele courage — the pretension, subsequently — to note in respect of the person concerned, in particular Mr. De Croo, that he intervened in the plenary session, while we had not heard him in the committee.

Well, Minister Tavernier, I spare you the verbal loudness that I had to collect because of Mr. De Croo at the time. I had at least learned my lesson. I therefore advise you to review the type of weight of your argument from now on.

I usually remember what I say.

In any case, in this matter, the question was asked and I will let the affairs be fixed. Their

Mr. Reynders, I suppose you have understood the question that may also be raised regarding the following document.

The following document with the number. 1957/1 is similar.

Mr. Speaker, I had informed the services that I was answering questions in the Senate. I can understand that one holds a lot of attention to the form. I regret already that, on the previous point, the choice was to return to the commission. It is the coordinated text that is referred to in the Annex and there is no problem in providing the coordinated text taking into account paragraph 5. Paragraph 5 ontbreekt in de bijlagen, but voor het overige is er geen problem in verband met de text. That was so overstated in the committee. This document can opnieuw naar de commission worden verzonden, but dat zou jammer genoeg geen korrekte oplossing zijn. As for the other two texts, I think this is the last time we proceed in this way of course, but this is a comment from the State Council. One can obviously imagine finding solutions to work with only one text to present at the same time. The problem we are facing is the following, I said in the committee. I asked my colleague of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Relations that we have the opportunity to make a list of international agreements that suffer, for formal reasons very often, significant delays. We will therefore try to present a large number of projects at the same time to settle the delay with regard to these agreements. There are agreements that sometimes go back to several years. What we didn’t want to do here is wait to have the two projects together to move forward. I think it would be a little shame, for purely formal reasons, to create a new delay. There is no problem. The legal provisions are deposited on both sides, we can move forward on both texts. Obviously, what we will try to do in the future is to work on a single document. I also asked my colleague on Foreign Relations that we can move forward in this way. But I tell you immediately that all of this does not cause me any problem. There is no unlikely urgency in this matter, but it would be a shame to delay again, for a purely formal reason, texts that, in essence, do not pose a problem.

Mr. Speaker, the second point is of course closed, but I deny that I was talking about the Annex.

In fact, I was really talking about the dispositive of Article 3, which lists the cases.

You have indeed said that.

Only Mr Coveliers spoke in questioning form about the Annex. He asked if it was about the attachment, but it was about the dispositive. In that regard, I asked a question concerning a problem that I think exists, concerning the correlation between paragraphs 1 to 4 and 6 and paragraph 5.

The reason why I insist and ask the government’s opinion regarding the amendment of the 1996 double tax treaty with Singapore is that there is indeed a problem. My group fully agrees with me that we must continue to agree with the government’s basic option to close that fiscal backdoor, the abuse of this preferential measure.

The arguments of the Government in the memorandum of explanations, concerning the retroactivity and the fact that an internal law deviates from Article 9 of the Supplementary Agreement, do not convince me. Indeed, it seems to me a risk to test the legal certainty in this regard, especially in cases of retroactivity.

Mr. Minister, you say that this is without argumentation and that the Government considers that the principle of equality in this regard is not compromised, but you do not explain why this is so.

Mr. Speaker, I think that, as recalled in the committee and as recalled in the plenary session, there is no problem in the substance. I think there is even no problem with the wording of the text as it is deposited here. Of course, the question can always be asked in terms of legal certainty. I believe that the State Council gave an opinion on the project without referring to such difficulties. This becomes almost an opportunity choice.

The committee has spoken, I think it is up to the plenary session to speak too. But one cannot constantly rest on the question of whether or not to approve the form that has been used. I am convinced that there is, here, no problem, neither on the substance, nor on how to proceed through both projects.

The general discussion is open.

I simply propose that the House declare itself by voting.

Yes, but we are in general discussion of the project, then I will go to the articles as it should be done.

It is not really about the form. I quote you the following passage in the Explanatory Memorandum: "Insofar as the Government considers that the retroactive effect of the measure concerned does not compromise the principle of equality of the Constitution, the proposal of the State Council, which aims to derogate an internal law from Article 9 of the Supplementary Agreement, will not be followed." It is, however, a parliamentary work in the creation of a measure that could sometimes be challenged, especially given the quite exceptional nature of the retroactive effect of the reparative measure in tax matters. How do you justify the statement “supplementary intelligence for the sake of the government”, in so far as the government considers that the retroactive effect of the measure concerned does not compromise the principle of equality? Based on what argument do you do that?

Mr. Speaker, on the one hand, the argument is actually found in the statement of reasons, on the other – I said it – we have a significant delay, not only in tax matters but in other areas, with regard to the ratification of a number of conventions. These agreements were concluded based on a situation at a given time. These conventions have been announced, they have been the subject of agreements between States.

What we are trying to do for the future — I repeat it — is to absorb backwardness and therefore to come faster — and I give Mr. Letters that he is right on this point — with this kind of ratification. But if we do not bring the provision into force with retroactivity, I believe we are not achieving the aim pursued. by

Regarding the information and equality of taxpayers in this matter, I believe that all taxpayers have been clearly warned of the application of the Convention in the terms that are now proposed to the House. Beyond this, there is no other argument and, I repeat, it is up to the House to decide.

The government has responded — I read it carefully here — in its exposition of reasons to the arguments of the State Council and the House will judge.

Mr. Speaker, I only regret that — with the exception of the argument concerning the delay — the Minister does not include any element of statement why in the Explanatory Memory it is stated that the Government considers that the retroactive effect of the measure concerned does not compromise the equality principle of the Constitution. What leads you to that reasoning? What do you claim that? I regret that I have not heard any substantive contribution from the government.

Mr. Speaker, on the basis of

Following the comments of Mr Leterme and the Minister’s response — I am not a member of that committee and I have not experienced that discussion — I refer to a ⁇ interesting judgment of the Court of Arbitration, which is cited at the bottom of page 10. It states that the retroactive force can be held accountable when it is indispensable for the achievement of an objective of general interest. The considerations under paragraph B.17 are important in the assessment of this element and the Government has responded to them. No legal uncertainty can arise because the taxable person has the possibility to object and because he could anticipate the consequences. That is exactly the criterion that the Arbitration Court uses to accept or not accept discrimination. I therefore rely solely on the theories of the Arbitration Court and not on the fiscal consequences, because I do not know them. I think that here is clearly answered.

Nov. 21, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, I will discuss the draft law in question.

No, you have to stick to the agenda.

Okay, I will start with the

The draft law. We talked about this bill two to three weeks ago. It is a shame that colleague and Deputy Prime Minister Tavernier is leaving the hall now, unless it would indeed be out of shame.

We then found that in the coordinated version, which was attached as an annex to that draft, a reference was forgotten in paragraph 5 of Article 55. This was a proof of excellence. The discussion was then suspended because Mr. Tavernier could not answer the question of what was the reason for the fact that it had been omitted.

When we subsequently, colleagues, insisted on the availability of the coordinated versions of the program law and finally expressed our satisfaction with regard to the commitment of colleague Tavernier that at the beginning of the discussions in the committee these coordinated versions of the legislative texts on which the program law holds will indeed be in stock, then I think this is a perfect illustration of the need to do so.

We will not deal with this draft law extensively. Our voting behavior will depend on the discussion after the return to the committee, where not Mr Tavernier but Mr Reynders spoke. I cannot conclude this brief explanation on this bill without referring to the recent issues presented here.

It must be from my heart, Mr. President. You, of course, take your truck box up and you smooth the debate in your Chamber, but in any case the conclusion can only be that you do not fulfill your commitment to organize the work related to the Program Law and also to the content of the text of the Program Law, I quote: "to have an exchange of thoughts". Rather, you make every effort to avoid that exchange of thoughts. So we know, in the meantime, what the word of the Chamber Chairman is worth, as it comes point by point, when it comes to making his Chamber work properly.