Every year, Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien), hosts a distinguished academic to deliver the Klaus Vogel Lecture in memory of Prof Klaus Vogel. The first presentation was entitled "European Tax Law, quo vadis?", and it was delivered in 2007 by Prof. Leif Mutén, after which Prof. Dr Jürgen Lüdicke gave his comments on the lecture. The lecture of 2018 was given by Prof. Mike Devereux, Oxford University. He spoke on “Should we use Value Creation or Destination as a Basis for Taxing Digital Businesses?”. As appointed commentator, Mr Krister Andersson referred to the EESC Opinion on taxation of digital businesses. The organisers facilitated distribution of the EESC opinion, both in English and in German. Mr Andersson's comments on the Lecture will be published in IBFD Bulletin in the December or January issue.
The EESC Opinion attracted a lot of interest at the meeting. The effects of changing the taxation model to base it on sales rather than on innovation, production, financing, risk taking and head quarter activities was discussed. The effect on smaller export-oriented Member States was the main topic in the panel discussion which followed the two presentations. The own initiative opinion on digital taxation currently in progress and a high-level EESC public hearing on "Taxation in the digitalised economy – which way forward?", to be held on 29 January 2019 in Brussels also attracted considerable interest. It would however have been valuable if more developing country representatives from Africa, South America and Asia could have participated. The UN, with its Expert Tax Committee within ECOSOC, would probably be a better forum to exchange views regarding EU treatment of third countries.