European leaders agreed yesterday to make fighting tax fraud a top priority. The goal is to create an automated system for exchanging information between the EU and its member states. Leaders also proposed reaching a new agreement on the how personal savings are taxed by the end of this year.
Even though the proposal looks beneficial, the news has garnered some skepticism becuase it involves a strategy that officials have been trying to implement and follow for years without any results.
This time, the strategy has been exhumed in an effort to help boost tax revenues, which have been falling since the crisis began. EU leaders have not been able to overcome strong resistance to eliminating banking secrets and tax havens, which some member states want to protect and encourage. This will be a hard obstacle to overcome in just one year.
