Considerations on COM(2009)21 - Amendment of the VAT Directive as regards the rules on invoicing

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dossier COM(2009)21 - Amendment of the VAT Directive as regards the rules on invoicing.
document COM(2009)21 EN
date July 13, 2010
 
table>(1)Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (1) lays down conditions and rules concerning value added tax (hereinafter ‘VAT’) with respect to invoices, in order to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market. In accordance with Article 237 of that Directive, the Commission has presented a report which identifies, in the light of technological developments, certain difficulties with regard to electronic invoicing and which, in addition, identifies certain other areas in which the VAT rules should be simplified with a view to improving the functioning of the internal market.
(2)Since record keeping needs to be sufficient to allow Member States to control goods moving temporarily from one Member State to another, it should be made clear that record keeping is to include details of valuations on goods moving temporarily between Member States. Also, transfers of goods for valuation purposes to another Member State should not be regarded as a supply of goods for VAT purposes.

(3)The rules concerning the chargeability of VAT on intra-Community supplies of goods and on intra-Community acquisitions of goods should be clarified in order to ensure the uniformity of the information submitted in recapitulative statements and the timeliness of the exchange of information by means of those statements. It is furthermore appropriate that the continuous supply of goods from one Member State to another over a period of more than one calendar month should be regarded as being completed at the end of each calendar month.

(4)To help small and medium-sized enterprises that encounter difficulties in paying VAT to the competent authority before they have received payment from their customers, Member States should have the option of allowing VAT to be accounted using a cash accounting scheme which allows the supplier to pay VAT to the competent authority when he receives payment for a supply and which establishes his right of deduction when he pays for a supply. This should allow Member States to introduce an optional cash accounting scheme that does not have a negative effect on cash flow relating to their VAT receipts.

(5)To provide legal certainty for businesses regarding their invoicing obligations, it should be clearly stated which Member State’s invoicing rules apply.

(6)With a view to improving the functioning of the internal market, it is necessary to impose a harmonised time limit for the issue of an invoice with respect to certain cross-border supplies.

(7)Certain requirements concerning the information to be provided on invoices should be amended to allow better control of the tax, to create a more uniform treatment between cross-border and domestic supplies and to help promote electronic invoicing.

(8)Since the use of electronic invoicing can help businesses to reduce costs and be more competitive, current VAT requirements on electronic invoicing should be revised to remove existing burdens and barriers to uptake. Paper invoices and electronic invoices should be treated equally and the administrative burden on paper invoicing should not increase.

(9)Equal treatment should also apply as regards the competences of tax authorities. Their control competences and the rights and obligations of taxable persons should apply equally whether a taxable person chooses to issue paper invoices or electronic invoices.

(10)Invoices must reflect actual supplies and their authenticity, integrity and legibility should therefore be ensured. Business controls can be used to establish reliable audit trails linking invoices and supplies, thereby ensuring that any invoice (whether on paper or in electronic form) complies with those requirements.

(11)The authenticity and integrity of electronic invoices can also be ensured by using certain existing technologies, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and advanced electronic signatures. However, since other technologies exist, taxable persons should not be required to use any particular electronic-invoicing technology.

(12)It should be clarified that, where a taxable person stores online invoices which he has issued or received, the Member State in which the tax is due, in addition to the Member State in which the taxable person is established, should have the right to access those invoices for control purposes.

(13)Since the objectives of this Directive regarding the simplification, modernisation and harmonisation of the VAT invoicing rules cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved at the level of the Union, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

(14)In accordance with point 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better lawmaking (2), Member States are encouraged to draw up, for themselves and in the interests of the Union, their own tables illustrating, as far as possible, the correlation between this Directive and the transposition measures, and to make them public.

(15)Directive 2006/112/EC should therefore be amended accordingly,