4 ms·
What confuses me here is I thought nowadays that VAT law was supposed to be harmonised with the EU (and hence why VAT law is so complex and full of bizarre edge
by petercooper 13y ago
What confuses me here is I thought nowadays that VAT law was supposed to be harmonised with the EU (and hence why VAT law is so complex and full of bizarre edge cases). It seems the EU should have a policy on this instead that then filters down to each member state.
- rplnt 13y agoWhat do you mean by harmonized? Some countries have different VAT for different items, some have flat(ter) VATs, the amounts differ as well.
- petercooper 13y agoThere are directives that attempt to harmonize many of the policies, though not the amounts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#Sixth_Directive http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax#...
- topbanana 13y agoThere is no tax harmonization in the EU, or even the Eurozone.
- petercooper 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_value_added_tax It doesn't appear to be a very strong harmonization, but it's an attempt at harmonization: "EU member states are each required to adopt a value added tax that complies with the EU VAT code."
- _delirium 13y agoYeah, the EU's main interest in this is facilitating cross-border sales in the "single market". Countries can still levy whatever VAT they want on whatever items they want, but they are supposed to be moving towards a common set of terms and definitions for specifying it. The intent is that the UK can exempt books from VAT while Denmark charges 25% VAT on books, but both should at least agree on what constitutes a "book". I would think harmonizing what constitutes a "voucher" should also fall under the intent of the process.