Eighth report under Article 12 of Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1553/89 on VAT collection and control procedures

Article 12 of Council Regulation 1553/89 on the definitive uniform arrangements for the collection of own resources accruing from VAT requires the Commission to submit a report every three years to the European Parliament and the Council on the procedures applied in the Member States for registering taxable persons and determining and collecting VAT, as well as on the modalities and results of their VAT control systems.

This eighth report covers the developments in the period 2013 to 2016. The numerical data refer to the period between 2013 and 2015. For the preparation of this report, the Commission collected information from all EU Member States tax authorities through a questionnaire. Additionally, in order to obtain more precise information and clarify some of the answers to the questionnaire, the Commission services visited ten Member States.

This report is based on information received from national tax administrations. The quality and accuracy of the data varied significantly. Furthermore, since tax administrations are increasingly organised around integrated processes for all types of taxes, it was sometimes difficult to isolate specific VAT issues from the wider tax administration structure. Finally, social political, geographical, economic and historical specificities influencing the structure and organization of a national VAT collection and control system are beyond the scope of this report.