VATupdate Newsletter Week 26 2023

POLITE OR DIRECT?

“We welcome the opportunity to provide feedback on the Commissions VAT in the Digital Age proposals published on 8 December 2022.” Almost every organisation who provided its views on the EU Commission’s proposals for the renewal of the EU VAT rules starts with this, or a similar, phrase. And the next sentence usually starts with “However, we have the following comments.”

Opinion on political correctness: HERE

To me, as a Dutch person, it sounds as if the person who provides the feedback wants to be polite or politically correct, whereas the intention of that person is to tell the EU Commission that they did a rubbish job. I think it’s probably a language or cultural thing, but it seems to me that we could safe a lot of time if all the political correctness is slimmed-down a bit.

It’s almost like a 5-year-old showing you a drawing he made of a horse, where you only see two circles and 5 lines, where one line is the tail, and the dots in one circle and the pointy things on that circle are the eyes and ears. You are probably not going to say “that’s no horse”, rip-up the drawing and tell the then crying, child to start growing-up and take drawing lessons. No, you’re going to say that it’s a great drawing and that you’re proud of him.

But the EU Commission is not a 5-year-old. That’s an organisation whom you may consider a well-organised, sensible and grown-up bunch of knowledgeable and intelligent people, that have prepared something that has been considered, re-written and edited many times before it was shared with the world.

Of course, it’s much easier to comment on something that was created or prepared by someone else, than to come up with your own creation on a blank sheet of paper. And if someone else has done something that you haven’t done yourself, it’s easy to point out the flaws and errors.

Personally, I think the EU Commission did a good job, considering the tools and framework that had to work with. As pointed-out by the EU Commission many times, the ViDA proposals were ‘the best that was politically achievable’. And if you read all the comments, suggestions and feedback that were given, most of them boil down to the timing and some technical clarifications. The horse drawn by the EU Commission is still quite recognisable as a real horse. Perhaps it was not as realistic as a photo, but it has 4 legs, a tail, two eyes and two pointy ears.

If you want to read all the comments on the ViDA proposals, and on any other VAT topic, visit our website www.vatupdate.com.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.

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