The European Parliament is expected swiftly to conclude its reports on two proposals on VAT, one on e-commerce and the other on administrative cooperation and the fight against fraud, authored by Catalin Sorin Ivan (S&D, Romania) and Ludek Niedermayer (EPP, Czech Republic) respectively.
“There are not really any sensitive points to discuss”, Ivan said, following the debate of the committee on economic and monetary affairs of Wednesday 30 August. He said that he hoped that the meeting of the shadow reporters in Strasbourg would be able to resolve the only outstanding question: that of thresholds.
Readers may recall that the Commission proposed that companies registering annual cross-border sales of less than €100,000 benefit from simplified procedures to determine the place of establishment of their clients. Businesses registering cross-border sales of less than €10,000 a year will be able to continue to apply the VAT rules generally used in their country of origin. These thresholds may apply from 2018 to electronic services and, in 2021 at the latest, to online goods (see EUROPE 11680).
The shadow rapporteur of the EPP group, Germany's Werner Langen, referred to the proposal by the shadow rapporteur of the ALDE group, Cora van Nieuwenhuizen of the Netherlands, to increase the second threshold from €10,000 to €35,000 a year (a proposal which also has the support of the ECR group) and that of Molly Scott Cato (UK), shadow rapporteur of the Greens/EFA, to €100,000, and her other proposal to reduce the first threshold from €100,000 to €35,000. Langen supports the Commission's initial proposal for each of these upper limits.
On the other legislative proposal, the one relating to administrative cooperation, rapporteur Niedermayer also described it as a text on which the vote “will not be a complicated one”. Only 22 amendments have been tabled. He also referred to the sensitive amendment tabled by the S&D group, for the text to enter into force in 2019 rather than 2021. The Commission explained that it had chosen 2021 for practical reasons, as it fears that if the draft is implemented too soon, the administrations will not have enough time to prepare. (Original version in French by Élodie Lamer)