Directive 2004/7 - Amendment of Directive 77/388/EEC concerning the common system of VAT, as regards conferment of implementing powers and the procedure for adopting derogations - Main contents

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Legal instrument	Directive
Number legal act	Directive 2004/7
Original proposal	COM(2003)335
CELEX number i	32004L0007

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Council Directive 2004/7/EC of 20 January 2004 amending Directive 77/388/EEC concerning the common system of value added tax, as regards conferment of implementing powers and the procedure for adopting derogations

Official Journal L 027 , 30/01/2004 P. 0044 - 0045

Council Directive 2004/7/EC

of 20 January 2004

amending Directive 77/388/EEC concerning the common system of value added tax, as regards conferment of implementing powers and the procedure for adopting derogations

THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 93 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the opinion of the European Parliament(1),

Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee(2),

Whereas:

• (1) 

  Articles 27 and 30 of Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes - Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment(3), lay down procedures that may result in the tacit approval of derogations by the Council.

• (2) 

  In the interests of transparency and legal certainty, it is preferable to ensure that every derogation authorised under Article 27 or Article 30 of Directive 77/388/EEC takes the form of an explicit decision adopted by the Council acting on a proposal from the Commission.

• (3) 

  The possibility of tacit approval by the Council on the expiry of a given period should therefore be removed.

• (4) 

  In order to ensure that a Member State which has submitted a request for derogation is not left in doubt as to what action the Commission plans to take in response, time limits should be laid down within which the Commission must present to the Council either a proposal for authorisation or a communication setting out its objections.

• (5) 

  In order to enable Member States to follow more closely the processing of their requests, the Commission should be required, once it has all the information it considers necessary for appraising a request, to notify the requesting Member State accordingly and transmit the request, in its original language, to the other Member States.

• (6) 

  In the second sentence of paragraph 1 of Article 27 of Directive 77/388/EEC it is emphasised that the assessment of the negligible extent of the effect of the simplification measure on the amount of tax due at the final consumption stage is made in a global manner by reference to macroeconomic forecasts relating to the likely impact of the measure on the Community's own resources provided from VAT.

• (7) 

  In the absence of any mechanism for the adoption of binding measures to govern the implementation of Directive 77/388/EEC, the application of rules laid down in that Directive varies from one Member State to another.

• (8) 

  In order to improve the functioning of the internal market, it is essential to ensure more uniform application of the current VAT system. The introduction of a procedure for the adoption of measures to ensure the correct implementation of existing rules would represent a major step forward in that respect.

• (9) 

  Those measures should, in particular, address the problem of double taxation of cross-border transactions which can occur as the result of divergences between Member States in the application of the provisions of Directive 77/388/EEC governing the place of supply.

• (10) 

  However, the scope of each implementing measure should remain limited since, albeit designed to clarify a provision laid down in Directive 77/388/EEC, it could never derogate from such a provision.

• (11) 

  Although the scope of the implementing measures would be limited, those measures would have a budgetary impact which for one or more Member States could be...

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