Quietly, behind the scenes, European Commission officials and representatives of member states are working on what the Commission proposes will be the new corporate tax system for Europe - the Common ated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB). A draft directive emerged nearly 15 months ago. The directive purported to set out the basic rules for determining the tax base for companies - in just 63 pages. The Office of Tax Simplification has recently whiled away a few happy weeks counting up the number of pages of UK legislation. It concluded that the actual total is just over 6,000 pages. Admittedly, those pages include many more taxes than corporation tax - but corporation tax must account for at least 2,000 pages.
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