Who would you vote for in the Euro elections

[DodgyAgent]

I don't quite understand what point you are trying to make Helmutt but it is one thing to make rules quite another to enforce them.

Try this one:

Auditors refuse to give EU accounts a clean bill of health for 19th year in a row | Mail Online

[darmstadt]

Sunday Telegraph bollocks: How EU migrants avoid tax in UK - Telegraph

Rather misleading, non?

The piece goes on “Romanians and Bulgarians coming to work can avoid paying taxes in Britain because of a loophole.”

Large parts of the article are slanted, selective or simply incorrect, leading to a misleading impression overall.

The reality is as follows.

First, the vast majority of EU citizens working in the UK – well over 90% – are employed or self-employed in the UK, treated as resident and pay tax and social security in the UK.

Those referred to in the article are “posted workers”. In other words people not resident in the UK long-term – so arguably not even migrants - but sent to the UK for limited periods by employers based elsewhere in the EU.

Given that posted workers in the UK come from many different EU Member States, it is difficult to see any good reason why the newspaper singles out Romanians and Bulgarians.

Second, there is no “loophole”, only reciprocal agreements made by the UK government. Where workers temporarily posted to the UK by employers in other countries pay tax is not governed by EU law – it depends on bilateral agreements between the UK and those countries.

As a general rule, however, those posted for less than six months continue to pay tax in their home country.

This, though the article neglects to mention it, obviously also usually applies to UK residents posted to work elsewhere in the EU – they generally continue to pay UK tax, rather than tax in the country where they are working.

So the headline could just as well be reversed to say: “UK migrants can avoid tax in other EU countries.”

The number of workers posted by UK employers to EU countries – about 35 000 a year – is roughly equivalent to the number of workers posted to the UK. So the UK is unlikely to be down on the deal, especially as many workers posted from the UK are high earning professionals.

Social security contributions for temporarily posted workers are, unlike taxation, directly covered by EU law agreed by all Member States. Posted workers –whether they are British residents working in say France or Germany, or for example Spanish or Polish residents temporarily posted to the UK – do indeed pay their contributions in their home country rather than the country of work.

As is logical – though the Sunday Telegraph omits to mention this part – their home country is also reponsible for paying any social security benefits to which they might be entitled.

As a result, EU workers posted to the UK and paying social security contributions elsewhere are not eligible for UK social security benefits – whether in work or out of work benefits. They must claim any benefits from their own country.

The newspaper is therefore incorrect to say they can receive child benefit from the UK – to be eligible, they would need to be habitually resident, which, as a general rule, posted workers are not.

The same applies with respect to housing benefit.

Finally, the article is right that EU workers posted to the UK are entitled to free health care – but it fails to mention that the UK can claim reimbursement for this from their home country.

[BrilloPad]

Who cares?

[darmstadt]

Daily Express and Telegraph Bollocks: EU rules let inspectors dig up our gardens for plant 'threats' | Nature | News | Daily Express Gardeners with Rhododendrons could be 'criminalised' by new EU law - Telegraph

There is, of course, no such thing as an ‘EU inspector’, so Sunday Express readers can relax: no euro-jobsworths in blue overalls with yellow twelve star logos will be arriving at dawn to dig up herbaceous borders or bundle rhodendron aficionados into vans.

The European Commission has proposed an EU Regulation on preventing and managing invasive alien species.

[darmstadt]

I don't quite understand what point you are trying to make Helmutt but it is one thing to make rules quite another to enforce them.

Try this one:

Auditors refuse to give EU accounts a clean bill of health for 19th year in a row | Mail Online

I have no ******* clue who helmet or Helmutt is but: The annual report on the EU budget for 2012 financial year was published today (5/11/2013) by the European Court of Auditors (ECA). As independent auditor, the ECA has signed off the 2012 accounts of the European Union, as it has done each year since the 2007 financial year. But in most spending areas of the EU budget the report finds that the legislation in force is still not fully complied with. The ECA calls for a rethink of EU spending rules and recommends simplifying the legislative framework. The 2014–2020 programming period looks likely to remain expenditure oriented - designed for getting the EU budget allocated and spent - rather than focusing on the value it is intended to bring.

UK media – for example the Daily Mail, Daily Express and the Times – yet again reported that the European Court of Auditors (ECA) has not signed off the EU accounts. Some media -this time including the Daily Telegraph – claim that UK taxpayers will be liable to pay back GBP 800 million. Both statements are simply false.

The Court did in fact sign off as accurate the EU’s accounts for 2012 – as it has done each year since 2007. It stated this clearly in its press release European Court of Auditors | 2012 Annual report.

The ECA (not the European Commission) was so concerned by the flagrant inaccuracy of so many reports that it tweeted Mail online and other media in UK and beyond to request changes @EUAuditorsECA

The ECA annual report tracks the amount of errors that affect financial transactions under the EU budget against a stringent set of rules and procedures.

Many media neglect to emphasise that – while the Court makes clear the Commission also has more work to do – most of the errors take place at national level, including frequently in the UK, and concern decentralised programmes like agriculture and regional funding rather than money managed centrally in Brussels. Member States are responsible for managing 80% of EU funds.

They fail to mention that where errors have serious budgetary effects, the Commission succeeds in clawing most of the money back so it can then be used for other projects: about £3.8 billion/EUR 4.4 billion in 2012.

So the fact that the error rate for 2012 is 4.8% (compared to 3.9% for 2011) does not mean – as the newspapers claim, despite having the situation fully explained to them – that the extrapolated amount of money from the EU annual budget total is written off.

Nor does this mean that the UK (or any other member state) will have to pay back any amount into a bank account in Brussels.

Neither does the fact that a project has not fully adhered to the procedures as it should have, always signify that the money is wasted or that the main project objectives were not achieved.

For example, if member state authorities spending EU money on a new bridge did not properly follow public procurement rules – that is not acceptable. But it does not mean that the bridge is not built or the money is wasted.

These Court of Auditors reports and the increase in the error rate this year, after a long period of improvement, are serious matter, something which the Commission fully recognises. It has in the past seven years endeavoured to reduce the number of errors by introducing modern accounting practices, tighter rules on EU spending, stricter supervision, and stronger control measures.

Under the next seven-year budget 2014-2020 the EU will implement further reforms EUROPA - PRESS RELEASES - Press release - Annual report of the European Court of Auditors to simplify the system and introduce even more stringent rules to encourage all Member States – including the UK – to take more care about the way they spend EU funds.

For example, the Commission has had to claw back from UK nearly EUR 300 million in corrections to UK administered EU agriculture spending over the last three years. There have also been significant errors in regional policy –payments to UK programmes have had to be interrupted several times.

As a reader put it on one of the newspapers’ blog threads – this is not the EU wasting member states’ money, but member states misspending European money.

That is certainly a very simplistic summary.

But it is perhaps less simplistic than much of the media reporting of the ECA report which has yet again seen newspapers throwing incorrect figures around to kindle public outrage.

[hyperD]

I have no ******* clue who helmet or Helmutt is...

[DodgyAgent]

There have also been significant errors in regional policy –payments to UK programmes have had to be interrupted several times.

It's called corruption

[DodgyAgent]

Its Helmet and his dog Helmutt

[darmstadt]

There have also been significant errors in regional policy –payments to UK programmes have had to be interrupted several times.

It's called corruption

So basically you've just insinuated that both regional and national government in the UK is corrupt?

[Mich the Tester]

So vote for political parties who want to stay in the EU? The whole organisation is corrupt, top to bottom. UKIP want to get out of it!

UKIP cannot change 'European issues'. They are outnumbered 100-1 by Euro-fanatics in the European Parliament.

No they aren't. Every European country has euro-skeptic parties and every country has parties that campaign to reform the EU, and together they could form majorities on many issues; the trouble is that every time any of those parties want to reform something, the likes of UKIP don't actually bother to turn up to work.