Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation clarifying Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns principles for recording taxes and social contributions
Date: 1999-10-18
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, European accounting system, data transmission, social-security contribution, tax

C 21 E/68

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

25.1.2000

Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation clarifying Council Regulation (EC) No
2223/96 as concerns principles for recording taxes and social contributions

(2000/C 21 E/14)

COM(1999) 488 final (cid:151) 1999/0200(COD)

(Submitted by the Commission on 18 October 1999)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE
EUROPEAN UNION,

Financial and Balance of Payments Statistics (CMFB), set up
by Decision 91/115/EEC, have been consulted.

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European
Community, and in particular Article 285 thereof,

HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of
Committee,

the Economic and Social

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article
251 of the Treaty,

Whereas:

common standards, definitions,

(1) Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 of 25 June 1996 on
the European System of national and regional accounts in
the Community (ESA 95) contains the reference framework
classifications, and
of
the
accounting rules for drawing up the accounts of
Member States
the
requirements of
to obtain comparable
European Community,
results between Member States;

the statistical
in order

for

(2) Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 sets

the
conditions under which the Commission may adopt
amendments
to the ESA 95 methodology which are
intended to clarify and improve its content;

(3) The condition according to which the Commission cannot
in the present case,

change underlying concepts is not,
clearly respected;

(4) It

is

therefore necessary

clarifications
concerning the recording of taxes and social contributions
in ESA 95 to the European Parliament and to the Council;

to refer

the

(5) Article 2 of the protocol on the excessive deficit procedure
the
relating to Article 104 of
government deficit means net borrowing of the general
government sector as defined in the European System of
Integrated Economic Accounts (ESA);

the Treaty states

that

(6) In cases in which ESA 95 cannot ensure a comparable and
transparent solution across the Member States, reference
should be made to the principles of economic accounts
as outlined in the world-wide System of National
in the case the relevant SNA para-
Accounts (SNA 93),
graphs being 7.60 and 8.50;

(7) The Statistical Programme Committee, set up by Decision
89/382/EEC, Euratom, and the Committee on Monetary,

Article 1

Purpose

The purpose of this Regulation is to establish common prin-
ciples clarifying the content of ESA 95 as concerns taxes and
social contributions in order to ensure comparability and trans-
parency among the Member States.

Article 2

General principles

Taxes and social contributions recorded in the system shall not
include amounts unlikely to be collected.

Accordingly,
system on an accrual basis,
reasonable amount of
actually received.

taxes and social contributions recorded in the
shall be equivalent over a
time to the corresponding amounts

Article 3

Treatment of

taxes and social contributions

in the

accounts

Taxes and social contributions recorded in the accounts may be
derived from two sources: cash receipts or amounts evidenced
by assessments and declarations.

(a) If assessments and declarations are used, the amounts shall
be adjusted by a coefficient reflecting assessments never
collected. The coefficients shall be estimated on the basis
of past experience in respect of assessed amounts never
collected. They shall be specific to different types of taxes
and social contributions. The determination of these coef-
ficients shall be country specific, the method being cleared
with the Commission (Eurostat) beforehand.

(b) If cash receipts are used, they shall be time adjusted so that
the cash is attributed when the activity took place to
generate the tax liability (or when the amount of tax was
determined,
some income taxes). This
adjustment may be based on the average time difference
between the activity (or the determination of the amount
of tax) and cash tax receipt.

in the case of

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Official Journal of the European Communities

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Article 4

Balancing expenditures, output and incomes
in the accounts

In order to balance the GDP based on expenditures with the
GPD based on output, any taxes on production that are
included in the market price of goods and services purchased
but which, due to evasion, bankruptcy or other causes, are in
fact never paid by the seller to the government, shall be
the seller. A similar
included in the operating surplus of
treatment shall be applied when calculating GDP based on
incomes to income taxes or social contributions that are
collected from employees but never paid by employers to the
government.

Article 5

Verification

The methods applied and the possible revisions shall be
3.
subject to agreement between each Member State concerned
and the Commission (Eurostat).

4.
The Commission (Eurostat) will keep the SPC, the CMFB
and the GNP Committee (Gross National Product) informed of
the description of the methods and the calculation of the afore-
mentioned coefficients.

Article 6

Implementation

The Commission, within 6 months of the adoption of the
present Regulation, will introduce in the text of ESA 95, in
the context of the procedure defined at the Article 2(2) of the
Regulation (EC) No 2223/96,
the changes needed for the
application of the present Regulation.

The Commission (Eurostat) will verify the implementation
the principles laid down in the present Regulation by

1.
of
Member States.

Article 7

Entry into force

2.
From 2000 onwards, Member States will provide to the
Commission (Eurostat) before the end of each year, a detailed
description of the methods they plan to use for the different
categories of
to
taxes and social contributions
implement the present Regulation.

in order

This Regulation shall enter into force on the 20th day following
its publication in the Official Journal of the European Commun-
ities.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly
applicable in all Member States.