VAT on financial and insurance services

The Value Added Tax (VAT) on financial services has been debated for many years, since applying VAT to these services is technically difficult. At EU level, most financial and insurance services are exempted from VAT as currently set in article 135(1) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC on the common system of VAT. But Member States may allow taxable persons to opt for taxation as far as most of the exempted financial transactions are concerned (article 137 of Directive 2006/112/EC). Many analysts consider that the current system creates significant distortions.

This Keysource brings together a useful index (with hyperlinks) to further sources of information on this topic.