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You can send an email to mark@us-vat.com, or give me a call on 646-397-5855. You can use Skype – my skype name is markhoutzager.
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Tim Gillis, KPMG’s Head of Global Indirect Tax summarizes the factors that drive change in indirect tax management.
This is definitely worth your time – and you should probably also take note of KPMG’s global VAT survey and my comments here: http://www.us-vat.com/blog/?p=665
Here are the slides and a link to a NYTimes article that I discussed on May 21 in my presentation for ACT (see http://www.taxact.org/events/Sessions.aspx?id=251506)
The European Court of Justice issued an interesting ruling last week in the ongoing saga of the VAT issues of Martens Transport.
Martens is a Belgian group of related companies in the trucking / transportation industry. Like any organization, they had internal charges for various services. Payments were made, but unfortunately the payments were not accompanied by corresponding compliant VAT invoices.
The ‘supplying’ company had to account for the VAT on the charge. The ‘buying’ company did not have the right to reclaim the VAT incurred, because the invoices were incorrect.
I would have thought that the Belgian tax administration should have allowed the invoices to be duly corrected, even when the errors were discovered during an audit. But they didn’t, and the Court of Justice did not have the means to change that policy.
Also, at that time Belgium did not recognize the concept of “fiscal unity” [edited from the original version as per Michel Lambion's comment below]. That facility, which applies for example in The Netherlands, considers related groups of companies as a single taxpayer, and thus inter-company charges between group members are disregarded for VAT.
Shame on the Belgian VAT Man, but also a stark reminder that inter-company charges should be invoiced correctly, and properly accounted for in the VAT filings.
The court ruling is here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62012CJ0271:EN:HTML
Teaching on Tuesday the 21st in Clearwater, FL, at the annual conference of the Tax Technology Association. I will be talking about the Future of Tax Management and Technology.
Come and say ‘hi’ if you are there!
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This is an interesting opinion piece about the Marketplace Fairness Act. Value Added Tax in the U.S. ain’t gonna happen anytime soon.
Over the past years, there have been various calls for a value-added tax in the United States; the explosive growth of online commerce should renew that debate. The VAT is well suited to online commerce because it creates a chain of revenue that goes from vendors to wholesalers to final customers. Of course, a VAT would be inherently disruptive of state-sales taxes and would require radical changes at the state and national levels. We appear nowhere near that.
via Online sales tax: a good idea done badly | The Edgy Optimist.
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EU member state Slovenia (this is not Slovakia) plans a rate increase from 20% to 22%.
Prime Minister Alenka Bratusek said the package, which includes a rise in value added tax from July 1 to 22 percent from 20 percent, would be enough to prevent the tiny Alpine country following Cyprus in the eurozone queue for a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.
via UPDATE 3-Slovenia pledges to sell 15 firms, raise VAT to avert bailout | Reuters.
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