Talk:European Union value added tax

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Start of the article

I mapped out where I think the article should go and will try to provide as much content as possible. The will definitely need to be amended, probably structurally as well. I think this is a start for developing the article.EECavazos (talk) 21:57, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am filling in some content. I will added references to all the supply of goods and services etc once I get the content in.EECavazos (talk) 00:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mix of goods and services

I suppose we could add a section on what are the rules when an exchange for consideration includes a mix of goods and services. What do people think?EECavazos (talk) 03:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Impact

Think a section on the impact of the EU VAT would be a good idea.EECavazos (talk) 05:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merger of EU VAT content from VAT

I think a lot of the material from the EU VAT section in the VAT article can be merged into this article. Then the EU VAT section in the VAT article may cover material pertinent to EU VAT's function has a tool of harmonization of the EU member state VATs. Meanwhile, this article could use the content from the VAT article that covers the 8th and 13th directive along with the other details in the VAT article.EECavazos (talk) 05:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done.EECavazos (talk) 21:28, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rationale

I have assumed that the reason for keeping VAT on most things between 15 and 25% is to prevent distortion of the single market. In Switzerland VAT is 7.5% because it is not the same market, even tho it is surrounded by the EU and in EFTA which deals with trade. But they can't force Switzerland to follow those rules unless they agree to join. It's not because they have a different currency, so does the UK, Denmark, Sweden etc. Is it because of the single market? Monaco is outside the EU but charges the same as France, again to prevent distortion? --81.105.251.230 (talk) 01:03, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In fact EU Directive 2006/112/EC provides that the standard VAT rate (there are also reduced rates that can in practice be as low as 0% in some EU Member States) can't be lower than 15% (which is currently the case for Luxembourg and should become the case for the UK). However said Directive does not provide a maximum VAT rate (although this figure had been given as maximum during the discussion about the current rules governing the VAT rates it has never been officialy implemented). It seems that the two Member States that have a VAT rate of 25% (i.e. Denmark and Sweden if I remember well) consider that they cannot go to higher rates without this having a negative impact on their internal trade (consummers could have the temptation to buy in neighbour countries (especially in Denmark where the German border is after all not so far. For the EU countries surrounding Switzerland, the fact that the Swiss normal VAT rate is only of 7.6% doesn't make a big issue. Since Switzerland is no Member of the EU, EU citizen who buy in Siwtzerland have still to undergo customs controls when crossing the border from Switzerland to another EU Member State and are allowed to import only limited quantity of goods (and furthermore for limited values). This still constitutes a very obvious and effective bareer for people who would like to take advantage from the Swiss VAT rates while living in France, Germany, Switzerland or Austria. On the other hand, since Switzerland is not member of the EU, it is clear the the EU Council or Commission have no possibility to constrain Switzerland to change their VAT rate. Currency is here of no importance.

The question of Monaco is more specific. First of all there are tax agreements between France and Monaco. This has led to the fact that although independent from France, for the application of the EU directives on VAT, Monaco has been considered as being part of the EU terrirory. On the contrary, the Canary Islands, although belonging to Spain, are excluded from the VAT territory of the EU. For more information on the territorial biundaries of the EU for VAT purposes, please see Articles 5 to 8 of Directive 2006/112/EC. --Lebob-BE (talk) 13:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Impact in France

The statement about French VAT accounting for 43% of taxable revenue needs a citation as the tag already states. The main "Value Added Tax" article suggests that it is in fact 51% and provides a citation. I am unable to judge value of citations in this case so I shall leave an edit to someone else. Rob Burbidge (talk) 14:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lisbon Treaty

The EC Treaty references might be replaced by those to the Lisbon Treaty. Dzsi —Preceding undated comment added 21:57, 28 September 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Exemptions/Non-Taxed Items

Would it be worthwhile to catalogue the specific items in certain countries that are either exempt or taxed a rate of 0% (eg. Books and most food in the UK, Medicine in Sweden, Newspapers in Finland). The EC's Customs and Taxation unit has an exhaustive list of VAT rates for all goods as well as historical rates. This could be informative, however is extremely (perhaps overly) detailed and subject to frequent change. However, should there be footnotes for countries with a significant number of exempt/non-tax items? Petropetro (talk) 04:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

There's clearly a large overlap between this article and European Union value-added tax area. They should be merged. — Blue-Haired Lawyer ^t 13:48, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

citation needed

The latest change includes a large number of "citation needed" remarks, about all of them are verifiable by reading the VAT directive were they are specified.

I think still the article if far too much about VAT that the VAT article solves and far too less about the VAT union as a mean of free goods transportation within the EU, that is actually the main point. Even though a part of the national contribution is related to national VAT incomes, the VAT is still not a EU tax. Still the member states pay their share of the EU budget directly from the national governments budgets and all VAT are in fact a national governmental tax within the union. Many might believe the EU is taxing anything or anyone, and the EU just don't. The VAT directive would not be created if it wasn't necessary for the creation of the border free Europe. And international treaties like with EFTA and now with the US and Japan, is only of major interest for the huge large volume international trading companies. For the SME the import border VAT that is still there despite custom fees are gone, are still a huge problem of free trade. Something often politicians are vary little aware of. A parcel on a lorry from Rome is faster and much cheaper in Stockholm than one from Oslo (EFTA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.247.9.228 (talk) 02:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

re: citation-needed tag. Yes, I put the citation needed tags as an aid to show where footnotes should be added, in my opinion. The external-links and further-reading sections are not intended for references used to verify content. It is preferable to provide footnotes for individual statements or chunks of text that enable the reader to easily verify that the source has been interpreted correctly. In the case of legislation, this probably means citing the article or section. If the text explains the content of the directive, the general source may be obvious, but when text explains the purpose of the directive or other comment, this is not obvious (and a secondary source might be preferable), so a footnote reference should be used.

In the case of legislation and other material that requires correct interpretation, it is usually appropriate to (additionally) provide secondary sources that provide a reliable interpretation. In the case of the VAT directive, there are a number of things (such as derogations) that make interpretation non-trivial. Though normally independent (third-party) secondary sources are preferred, in the case of legislation such as the VAT directive, I do not see a problem with using material from the European Commission that explains the legislation, e.g.

"Where to tax?". European Commission. Retrieved 21 November 2013.

--Boson (talk) 14:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

re: "I think still the article if far too much about VAT that the VAT article solves".

I have attemted to address this, but some discussion of VAT in general is necessary for an understanding of the treatment of cross-border taxation within the EU and the EU rules on exemption, zero-rating, etc. I removed or condensed some stuff about VAT, guidelines and directives in general, referring to the relevant articles (e.g. using the template {{Further}}, which is standard. This may be read by people from countries who do not have VAT, so I think we need to explain a little bit here, even if we refer to other articles for details. This is what hatnote templates like {{ Further }} are for.

The section "VAT fraud" should probably be restricted to a discussion of VAT fraud in the EU (which could probably fill several books), but the section contained nothing specific to EU VAT, so I have removed it for the time being.

--Boson (talk) 14:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

re: " far too less about the VAT union as a mean of free goods transportation within the EU, that is actually the main point":

I think that is only one point. It might be one of the main aims of the VAT directive but VAT within the EU (the topic of this article) has several "points".The title of the article is European Union value added tax; so it should be about all aspects of that topic that a reader might expect to find under that title. I believe there was a separate article on the "EU VAT area" that was merged into this article. I am not sure where your term "VAT union" comes from. As far as I know, the EU talks about the "VAT area", not about a VAT union.

I agree that the article needs some work. I have, as a start,attempted to integrate the new information and sort out the formatting and layout (e.g: the article should start with a definition of the topic). I also added some tags to indicate some places where work is needed.

In the longer term, we will probably need a separate article on the European Union value added tax directives since other major directives have their own article and it helps categorization, etc. But that does not necessarily mean removing current material from this article. The separate article would contain infoboxes with standard information such as amendments, etc. and historical information. The normal way of doing this would be to summarize the directive in this article and use a {{Further}} or {{Main}} template to refer to an article with the details,which could include all the directives and their histories. I would not feel very happy about adding Category:European Union directives to this article, but someone looking for all directives should be able to start from that category. I think, an important EU directive should have its own article and a redirect from the directive's number (which would be categorized within Category:European Union directives by number). As an example, see European units of measurement directives.

The lede is obviously too short and needs rewriting, but that is best left until the rest of the article is OK, since the lede is supposed to summarize the article.

--Boson (talk) 15:01, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Update needed

I added the update template as the content seems not to cover current EU rules, e.g. on the treatment of imports. Expert attention is needed. EEye (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Why is Russia not included

Why is Russia not included on the map, but Turkey is? In my opinion, both (and maybe the Caucasus too) should be in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 (talk • contribs) 05:17, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Map issues

Estonia VAT is incorrect, starting 2024 it's 22%.

"Irelnad" instead of Ireland

GB is an island see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain Northern Ireland is not a part of GB. 2001:4C4E:234A:7300:449C:EC0E:2C77:8917 (talk) 22:44, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have left a message for its creator (at Wikimedia Commons) requesting that it be corrected. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:04, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]