The
proposed measures, which need to be approved by EU member
states and the European Parliament, was in particular targeted
at missing trader fraud, or carousel fraud, which occurs when
somebody imports high-tech goods such as chips and mobile
phones free of VAT from other EU countries and then sells it
with the VAT added.
Among
those measures was to speed up the collection and exchange of
information on cross-border transactions within the EU,
enabling member states to detect fraud very quickly.
From
2010 onwards, people liable to VAT will have to declare
cross-border transactions within one month. EU governments
will have to transmit the information to other member states
involved within one month instead of the current three months.
Buyers
or customers making transactions to a value of more than
200,000 euros (311,000 U.S. dollars) per calendar year will be
obliged to submit their VAT declarations monthly.
"The
measures being proposed today are the first step towards amore
effective fight against VAT fraud. Their advantages are that
they can be implemented very quickly and do not impose any
significant administrative burdens on economic
operators," said Laszlo Kovacs, EU commissioner
responsible for taxation and the customs union.
VAT
fraud is estimated to cost EU governments some 60 billion
euros (77 billion U.S. dollars) a year.
