EU Warns Members to Raise Tax Reporting Fines or Face Lawsuits

The European Commission will take EU countries to court if they have excessively low penalties for noncompliance with the bloc’s tax data-sharing rules, a top official warned Tuesday.

Benjamin Angel, the commission’s chief for indirect taxation, said “this year, we will start opening a group of infringement procedures against member states with insufficient penalties that do not match the definition established in the directive.” He was referring to the Directive on Administrative Cooperation, or DAC, which enables the EU’s 27 countries to collect and share tax information with each other.

Angel said the penalties have often ...