Press Release: VAT: The European Commission intends to modernise the current legislation on financial services and insurances

Preview of a one day conference on 11 May 2006, organised by the European Commission together with the European Banking Federation (EBF), on the modernisation of legislation on financial services and insurances. The main objectives of a modernisation would mainly be to reduce the administrative costs for administrations and traders, to remove potential or actual competitive distortions between supplies across different Member States and to create more clarity and security for Member States and traders VAT should be applied in a manner consistent with a level playing field and accordingly eliminate all VAT attributable competitive distortions.