Brussels, 13/01/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 13 January, EU Taxation Commissioner Algirdas Semeta said that the complexity of the European Union's current VAT system holds back business within the single market. Companies doing business in more than one member state, for example, have to deal with a number of different tax offices in different languages, which is tricky and costly. For this reason, the European Commission has unveiled draft legislation to introduce a one-stop shop on 1 January 2015 for businesses doing e-commerce. This would be the first stage in a process and would initially only apply, as the Commission explained in a report on the future of VAT published in December 2011, to telecoms, broadcasting and e-commerce. In the future, the Commission hopes to extend the one-stop system to other goods and services. Semeta says: “The one-stop shop will greatly facilitate cross border expansion of European start-ups. This in turn will help to generate growth and jobs.”
The draft legislation published on Friday covers reporting obligations, VAT returns, currency, payments, records and so on for which common rules are necessary. The implementation on 1 January 2015 of a mini one-stop shop for EU providers of telecoms, broadcasting and electronic services to consumers will, the Commission says, “be a big step forward in simplifying VAT compliance rules in the EU”.
The one-stop shop will allow businesses to declare and pay the VAT in the member state where they are established rather than where their customer belongs. The one-stop shop system that is currently limited to non-EU providers of electronic services is being extended to EU businesses and to broadcasting and telecom services. In the future the intention is to extend the one-stop shop to even more activities, including supplies of goods. The current draft legislation is a first step in an extensive work programme which will lead, in the Commission's words, to “timely and successful implementation of the new scheme”. The Commission calls on all member states to agree to the measures in 2012, pointing out that a common approach is key to design the IT systems which will provide the necessary exchange of information between tax authorities in 27 member states and to ensure its full implementation by 2015. (OL/transl.fl)