Action Plan on VAT: Towards a single EU VAT area

This article was published under the 2015-2020 European Committee of the Regions mandate.

Summary

ECON-VI/017

Last updated
3 December 2019

12/10/2016
Adopted

Objective

Fraud, fragmentation and the complexity of the VAT system are a major challenge especially for border regions and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore the members of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) broadly support the European Commission’s move to modernise VAT in the EU through an opinion prepared by Dainis Turlais (LV/ALDE).

The Action Plan on VAT was published by the European Commission in April 2016 and is the first step towards a single EU value added tax (VAT) area in order to tackle fraud and simplify the administrative burden especially for e-commerce and SMEs. The huge level of existing VAT fraud reflects the shortcomings in the current system.

Impact

12 October, 2016  Cities and regions welcome modernisation and simplification of VAT rules

Fraud, fragmentation and the complexity of the VAT system are a major challenge especially for border regions and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Therefore the members of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) broadly support the European Commission’s move to modernise VAT in the EU through an opinion prepared by Dainis Turlais (LV/ALDE) and adopted during the October plenary.

Dainis TURLAIS

Rapporteur