Brussels, 28/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - In view of the hold-ups over the standardised VAT declaration project, the Italian Presidency of the Council has asked for political orientations on a number of points, so that it can finalise the legal text during its six months at the helm of the Council.
The draft directive, which was presented in October of last year by the Commission, aims to introduce, from 2017, a standardised VAT declaration throughout the EU, to replace the current system of 28 highly disparate national declarations, and to ensure that companies provide the same basic information, within the same timeframe, throughout the Union.
The sticking points include the content of the VAT declaration. “Many states called for additional or framework information to be included for tax control objectives, whilst others stressed that including more or framework information would jeopardise the aim of the proposal in terms of bringing costs down for companies”, writes the Italian Presidency, which tried to present a balanced approach somewhere between the two.
A second point on which there is not yet consensus is the degree of standardisation of the common form of the standardised VAT declaration. Some states take the view that a standardisation of the form, together with a standardisation of the content, is vital to help bring costs down for businesses. Others, on the other hand, argue in favour of greater flexibility. As for the Commission, it has stressed that standardised content without standardised form would not be to the advantage of businesses.
A third issue relates to the threshold above which micro-businesses would be permitted to submit their standardised declaration on a broader than monthly basis. The Presidency stresses that this is a delicate issue. A final point, which is blocked by a single delegation, is the option to extend the use of the VAT web portal to VAT declaration obligations. (EL)