Taxation of the collaborative economy – analysis of possible tax policies faced with the growth of the collaborative economy (exploratory opinion requested by the Estonian presidency)

Key points:

The EESC

• believes that the collaborative economy may offer a new opportunity for growth and development for the countries of the European Union;

• underlines that given the particularly fluid and rapid nature of change in this sector, it is crucial for fiscal regulatory systems and tax regimes to be adapted in an intelligent and flexible way;

• recommends that the tax system for the collaborative economy comply with the principle of neutrality (i.e. it must not interfere with market development), identifying appropriate tax mechanisms that are fair to the different types of business operating within the collaborative economy;

• advocates the rapid construction of a uniform, integrated European system that ensures common rules for the different Member States regarding the collaborative digital economy, in the light of the natural tendency for digital networks to operate in a cross-border setting;

• calls on the European authorities to make every effort to establish channels of cooperation beyond Europe in order to lay down some ground rules for the collaborative digital economy;

• considers it important to point out that, in addition to an appropriate tax system, protection and respect must be guaranteed for: (i) consumer rights, (ii) privacy and the rules on processing personal data, and (iii) workers and service providers involved in the new business models and in the work of collaborative platforms;
• urges the Commission and the Member States to work together to adopt an overall legal framework for the collaborative economy that can coordinate and standardise the tax rules that apply to these new forms of economic activity