Good things to remember about the VAT Committee

Contribution by Maria Cambien

The VAT Committee was set-up in 1977 and consists of representatives of the tax administrations of each Member State and is chaired by a representative of the European Commission.

The VAT Committee aims at assuring a more uniform application of EU VAT provisions. While being an advisory committee and thus not having legislative power, the VAT Committee represents however a recognized, very important and highly reliable source of technical insights into various VAT topics.

It regularly publishes guidelines on diverse VAT matters – the updated list of such guidelines being available here. To make the research easier for the VAT practitioners – a related index, per treated topic, is also provided.

Besides the list of the guidelines (issued since 1977 to date) other VAT materials are published too by the VAT Committee e.g. consultations and notifications from the Member States and, my favorite of all, the working papers.

The working papers (published here) are part of the documents related to the activities of the VAT Committee.  All such documents have since 2013 been published unless their disclosure undermines the protection of a public or private interest as defined in Article 4 of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to documents of EU institutions.

The working papers offer clear and comprehensive VAT analysis, performed by the services of the European Commission, related to many hot topics of the VAT system. The meeting reports (available as well) disclose the viewpoints related to such topics expressed by the representatives of the Member States.

A true VAT treasure. Enjoy it!

Source: European Commission

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