Improving the business environment for new businesses
The European Commission has adopted, on the initiative of Mr. Christos Papoutsis, Commissioner responsible for enterprise policy, a Recommendation addressed to the Member States which identifies best practice in the field of improving and simplifying the business environment for newly created enterprises and sets out measures relating to the start-up phase involving national authorities. In particular, the Recommendation focuses on the need to reduce the administrative burden imposed on business start-ups and to make public administrations more business friendly. This includes establishing a single contact point for the registration of new enterprises. It also deals with the stimulation of businesses in their first years of development by alleviating constraints of a tax, social, environmental and statistical nature. The specific measures included in the Recommendation are: - Administrations should establish single contact points for start-up formalities; - Enterprises should only be required to fill in a single form which will be sent to the relevant parts of the administration; - Establishment of a single identification number to be used by businesses when dealing with any part of the public administration; - Introduction of methods to speed up authorization procedures, such as an automatic approval to start a business if the administration remains silent; - Improvements in the fiscal treatment of newly established enterprises and simplified VAT procedures for SMEs; - Reductions in social security contributions when new employees are taken on; - Better coordination between the social security and taxation offices so as to improve the way they interact with businesses (e.g. the burden of different forms and different reporting periods, etc.).