Proposal for a Council Implementing Decision extending the period of validity of Decision 2012/232/EU authorising Romania to apply measures derogating from point (a) of Article 26(1) and Article 168 of Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of value added tax

Pursuant to Article 395(1) of Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (hereafter "the VAT Directive"), the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, may authorise any Member State to apply special measures for derogation from the provisions of that Directive in order to simplify the procedure for collecting VAT or to prevent certain forms of tax evasion or avoidance.

In order to simplify VAT collection and combat tax evasion, in 2011 Romania requested an individual derogation allowing it to restrict the right of deduction to 50% in relation to certain motorised road vehicles. The derogation request was approved by the Council by Decision 2012/232/EU of 26 April 2012 and expires on 31 December 2014.

By letter registered with the Commission on 13 February 2014, Romania requested authorisation to continue to apply a measure derogating from the overall principles governing the right of deduction of input VAT in relation to certain motorised road vehicles. The request was completed on 15 September 2014 with a report covering the application of Decision 2012/232/EU. It appears from the information provided by Romania that they find that the limitation of 50% still corresponds to the actual circumstances and that this limit therefore still should be regarded as appropriate.

However, any extension should be limited in time in order to assess whether the conditions on which the derogation is based would still be valid. Therefore, it is proposed to extend the derogation until the end of 2017 and to request Romania to present a new report if a new extension request would be envisaged beyond that date.

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)736: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:736:FIN

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