European finance ministers have reached agreement on VAT measures including: reduced rates on e-publications; a generalised reverse charge mechanism; interim ‘quick fixes’; and strengthened administrative cooperation against cross-border fraud.
The meeting of the ECOFIN council on 2 October made progress on some of the more contentious VAT measures originating in the Commission’s April 2016 VAT action plan and October 2017 proposals for a definitive EU VAT system.
The measures agreed include:
EU taxation commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, referring to the recent EU VAT gap figure of around €150bn, praised the agreements reached in council as, ‘another step towards addressing that problem and changing VAT rules for the better’.
Commission vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, welcomed the adoption of the e-publication regulation. This decision ‘will ensure an equal tax treatment of paper and digital products, which I think is an important signal we send for the development of the digital single market and, more broadly speaking, for a digital mind-set’, he commented.
Separately, the ECOFIN council formally adopted rules to control illicit cash flows in and out of the EU, tightening controls on people entering or leaving the EU with €10,000 or more in cash, enabling authorities to act on amounts lower than the declaration threshold of €10,000 where criminal activity is suspected, and extending customs controls to cash sent in postal parcels or freight shipments, prepaid cards and precious commodities such as gold.
European finance ministers have reached agreement on VAT measures including: reduced rates on e-publications; a generalised reverse charge mechanism; interim ‘quick fixes’; and strengthened administrative cooperation against cross-border fraud.
The meeting of the ECOFIN council on 2 October made progress on some of the more contentious VAT measures originating in the Commission’s April 2016 VAT action plan and October 2017 proposals for a definitive EU VAT system.
The measures agreed include:
EU taxation commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, referring to the recent EU VAT gap figure of around €150bn, praised the agreements reached in council as, ‘another step towards addressing that problem and changing VAT rules for the better’.
Commission vice-president, Valdis Dombrovskis, welcomed the adoption of the e-publication regulation. This decision ‘will ensure an equal tax treatment of paper and digital products, which I think is an important signal we send for the development of the digital single market and, more broadly speaking, for a digital mind-set’, he commented.
Separately, the ECOFIN council formally adopted rules to control illicit cash flows in and out of the EU, tightening controls on people entering or leaving the EU with €10,000 or more in cash, enabling authorities to act on amounts lower than the declaration threshold of €10,000 where criminal activity is suspected, and extending customs controls to cash sent in postal parcels or freight shipments, prepaid cards and precious commodities such as gold.