CJEU – Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2019

S. 1101. Introductory remarks

With more and more taxpayers operating cross-border, the need for tax administrations to obtain and verify information is increasing. Traditionally, tax administrations have resorted to exchange of information (EoI) procedures, be that on request, spontaneous or automatic, to gather information located outside of their borders. However, even though we are witnessing a stark rise in the quantity of information being exchanged automatically, these procedures still do not satisfy the growing need to obtain relevant and timely information. Their common feature is that tax administrations are contained within their respective jurisdictions where they gather information which is only subsequently exchanged with the partner country either on request, spontaneously or automatically. Concomitantly, taxpayers are seeking greater tax certainty in an ever more complex tax arena. Both of these tendencies call for better and more streamlined fact-finding procedures.

Moreover, within the European Union, we can see the paradox of having a much weaker and unsatisfactory dispute resolution mechanism for disputes relating to VAT, which is a harmonized tax, as opposed to a relati...