EC on VAT rules relating to taxable persons who facilitate distance sales of imported goods and related special schemes regarding third countries - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2023)262 - Amending Directive 2006/112/EC on VAT rules relating to taxable persons who facilitate distance sales of imported goods and ...
document	COM(2023)262
date	May 17, 2023

(1) Article 14a(1) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC ³ provides for the ‘deemed supplier regime’. Pursuant to that Article, where a taxable person facilitates, through the use of an electronic interface, distance sales of imported goods from third territories or third countries, that taxable person is to be the deemed supplier of those goods.

(2) The application of the ‘deemed supplier’ regime is currently limited to distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries in consignments of an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150. To reduce the compliance burden for traders selling via electronic interfaces, such as marketplaces, and to support a single value added tax (VAT) registration in the Union, the EUR 150 limit should be deleted. Consequently, the deemed supplier regime should cover all distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries into the Union, irrespective of their value.

(3) Title XII, Chapter 6, Section 4, of Directive 2006/112/EC sets down a special scheme for distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries known as the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS). Taxable persons who opt to register for the IOSS do not need to register for VAT in each Member State in which their eligible supplies of goods to consumers take place. Instead, the VAT due on those supplies can be declared and paid in a single Member State via the IOSS scheme. However, the IOSS special scheme is limited to distance sales of imported goods in consignments with an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150. To support a single VAT registration in the Union, the threshold of EUR 150 should be deleted so that taxable persons who make distance sales of goods imported from third territories or third countries into the Union exceeding EUR 150 are not obliged to register for import VAT in each Member State of destination of the goods.

(4) Title XII, Chapter 7, of Directive 2006/112/EC sets down the special arrangements for the declaration and payment of import VAT. When certain conditions are met, the special arrangements allow postal operators, express carriers, customs agents and other operators who fulfil the customs import declarations on behalf of the customer to declare and remit the VAT collected on certain imports on a monthly basis. The special arrangements are limited to imported goods in consignments of an intrinsic value not exceeding EUR 150, excluding products subject to excise duty. Therefore, to reduce the compliance burden and costs associated with imported goods in consignments of an intrinsic value above EUR 150, the threshold of EUR 150 should be deleted.

(5) In accordance with the Joint Political Declaration of 28 September 2011 of Member States and the Commission on explanatory documents ⁴, Member States have undertaken to accompany, in justified cases, the notification of their transposition measures with one or more documents explaining the relationship between the components of a directive and the corresponding parts of national transposition instruments. With regard to this Directive, the legislator considers the transmission of such documents to be justified.

(6) Since the objective of this Directive, namely to advance the concept of a single VAT registration in the Union, can only be achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

(7) Directive 2006/112/EC should therefore be amended accordingly.