New Implementing Regulation 282/2011 for the 2006 VAT Directive

his article seeks to provide a comprehensive summary of Council Regulation 282/2011, which, applicable from 1 July 2011, recasts Council Regulation 1777/2005 and introduces several implementing measures for the 2006 VAT Directive. These are mostly based on guidelines previously agreed by the VAT committee and several relate to the changes introduced by the 2008 VAT package. The new provisions are important and touch upon nearly all areas of the VAT system (scope of application, taxable persons, taxable supplies, place of supply, taxable amount, rates, exemptions, deductions, and taxpayer obligations). As concluding remarks, this article also points at some important weaknesses of the new rules related to the compliance costs, the fixed establishment as paying entity, and the proposed tools that Council Regulation 282/2011 provides to taxable persons in order to implement the new rules governing the place of supply of (electronic) services.