Exchange of VAT payment data

On 8 November, the EU Council reached a general approach on a set of rules to facilitate detection of tax fraud in cross-border e-commerce transactions.

This set of new rules consists of two legislative texts:

1. (i)    A proposal for a directive amending Directive 2006/112/EC as regards introducing certain requirements for payment service providers (Doc. 15508/18) ;
2. (ii)    A proposal for a regulation amending Regulation (EU) 904/2010 as regards measures to strengthen administrative co-operation in order to combat VAT fraud (Doc. 15509/18).

The objective of the proposals are (i) to put in place EU rules which will enable Member States to collect in a harmonised way the records made electronically available by the payment service providers and (ii) to set up a new central electronic system for the storage of the payment information and for the further processing of this information by anti-fraud officials in the Member States within the Eurofisc framework (Eurofisc is the network for the multilateral exchange of early-warning signals to fight VAT fraud, established pursuant to Chapter X of Regulation (EU) 904/2010). 

The EU Council, without further discussion, should formally adopt these proposals once the text has undergone a legal and linguistic review.