[pjc50]

> I think it's also worth mentioning that the EU's track record on tax issues and dealing with the large multinationals and their complex arrangements is awful. Just look at the hash they made of the VAT changes last year, which were supposedly going to have a beneficial effect by reducing multinational tax avoidance, but in fact did almost exactly the opposite, causing far more damage to smaller businesses than larger ones.

This is I think one of the few genuine substantial complaints against EU membership: the EU is very bad at dealing with small businesses, because they don't have time and money to get involved in the legislative process. Brussels is too far away.

[Silhouette]

Indeed. In the cast of the VAT mess, they literally didn't even realise that many thousands of very small ("micro") businesses existed. They effectively managed to legislate a lot of those businesses out of existence, because the compliance costs were more than the "extra Christmas present money" level of revenue the microbusinesses were generating. When the relevant officials finally noticed, literally a few days before the new rules came into effect, the initial response was basically "We've been working on this for years, why are people only objecting now?", as if someone selling knitting pattern PDFs from their kitchen table was going to know about EU-level discussions on international tax laws and contribute early. It was like a case study in being totally out of touch and introducing wildly disproportionate administrative burdens, and the officials involved didn't even realise they were the punchline.