Following the Ecommerce reform which entered into force as of 1st July 2021, the European Commission has recently presented a new short term stategy with the following aims:.

  • To reduce compliance costs for businesses;
  • To reduce the number of situations in which a company must register for VAT;
  • To strengthen the means to figh against VAT fraud;

The policy options are:

  • Extension of the OSS so that it covers all B2C supplies of goods and services by non-established suppliers;
  • Extension of the OSS to enable intra-community supplies and acquisitions of goods, thereby avoiding VAT registration when performing intra-community stock transfers;
  • Extension of the OSS to B2B supplies of goods and services, while leaving in place the current VAT refund mechanism for any deductible input VAT incurred outside a taxable person’s Member State of establishment;
  • Extension of the OSS to B2B supplies of goods and services, while also introducing a deduction mechanism into the OSS;
  • Making reverse charge available for all B2B supplies carried out by non-established suppliers;
  • Removing the €150 threshold for the IOSS, so that it can be used to declare VAT for distance sales of goods of any value;
  • Making the IOSS mandatory for all distance sales of imported goods;
  • Making the IOSS mandatory for marketplaces only (like Amazon, for example).

The ongoing consultation phase will end on 15 April 2022.

Source: European Commission (in French)