Rates of value added tax

Briefing 25-04-2018

This note seeks to provide an initial analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the European Commission's impact assessment (IA) accompanying the above proposal, submitted on 18 January 2018 and referred to Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. The proposal amends Directive 2006/112/EC (hereafter the VAT Directive), which sets out the rules governing the current temporary VAT system (dating from 1993), which are currently based on the principle of origin. When the Council adopted the common system of value added tax in 1967, the commitment was made to create a definitive VAT system operating within the European Community.