11.12.21

Study on ways to reduce the VAT Gap

The European Parliament has been looking into ways of reducing the VAT gap- and has published a study to this effect. There was a particular focus on cross-border VAT fraud, which amounts to a colossal 50 billion Euros per year. The total VAT gap in Europe is estimated to be 165 billion Euros.
There have been a few measures which are seen as generally promising in reducing the VAT gap, including:

• Accelerating the adoption of EU mandatory electronic invoice ‘Generalised EU VAT number’; and
• Accelerating the move towards a central electronic system

A binding EU-wide mandate for electronic invoicing is part of one of two proposed scenarios.