The Norwegian Ministry of Finance has proposed to extend the scope of services subject to Norwegian value-added tax (VAT) supplied by foreign service providers to cover the supply of intangible and remotely delivered services to Norwegian consumers (VAT on e-commerce or VOEC).
In the Ministry of Finance’s whitepaper, “consumers” will include not only private persons, but also all types of customers who are not considered as businesses or entrepreneurs (i.e., companies and organizations not considered as conducting business activities, such as pure or passive holding companies). The proposed regulations are likely to mean that a foreign service provider supplying remotely delivered advisory services (e.g., suppliers of transaction support services or legal services) to a Norwegian passive holding company will have to register for Norwegian VAT (using the simplified VAT registration scheme for e-commerce, VOEC) and charge 25 % Norwegian VAT. Thus, after the potential introduction of the new regulations, foreign suppliers will be required to keep track of the customers classification as business and consumer.
Source EY
