European Union had decided to introduce a single form for VAT return

24.10.2013

The Commission of European Union presented a draft of single form for VAT return, which allows businesses located within EU to reduce costs up to 15 billion euros by year. The aim of the project is easing tax compliance for companies and also reducing red-tape for business. Taxpayers of the European Union pay 150 billion euros to the national tax bodies every year. There is no unified tax return, every country of EU has its own form. Also a different level of tax information is requested by tax bodies and finally there are different deadlines for filling the tax return. All of these mentioned above makes doing business a cumbersome, extravagant and inconvenient process within the territories of several European countries.

A new reform offered by EU Commission is about to unify the tax return and now there is a proposal to introduce a form consisted of 5 fields which are mandatory for filing. In case tax bodies have any questions for taxpayers they can ask them privately and expand the amount of questions up to 26. In some countries of EU there are forms with 100 mandatory fields for filing.

Expected that according to the new project the businesses will file VAT returns at least once a month, and as for the term for small entrepreneurs it is supposed to be 3 months.

Based on: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-13-988_en.htm

Expert’s opinion

The debates of introducing unified VAT return started long ago. And finally words came into actions. It is true that this kind of tax is not the most pleasant which you need to take into account, pay and submit reports monthly or quarterly. Furthermore if you work within the European Union you are to have VAT number. Otherwise contractors will refuse to deliver goods.

This is the reason why entrepreneurs of the whole world are registered for VAT, submit reports and pay taxes.

But certainly to a fare-thee-well and many mistakes, cases and problems are ahead.

Nevertheless first steps are set out and I would like to wish patience and success to entrepreneurs of the whole world in their hard-fought labor.

Irina Lomakina ( Director of Moscow office of “Honest&Bright” Company)