Taxation
Companies in retail and wholesale are crucial for tax income: they are an important taxpayer and also a major collector of VAT.
Retailers and wholesalers, in particular those operating cross-border, have to cope with different national fiscal systems. The administrative burden involved unnecessarily increases costs for companies.
For a free, competitive internal market to succeed, a certain level of harmonisation and enforcement of fiscal rules are necessary. Taxation remains a sensitive issue for national governments and any decision at EU level requires unanimity. As a result, progress so far has been slow.
Key messages:
- VAT: In the long-run there should be one EU VAT system with harmonised rules and thus one VAT administration and one VAT return for all transactions within the internal market. In order to achieve this, a step-by-step approach to improve the current system should be taken.
- Company taxation: Merchants, especially those operating cross-border, bear the cost burden associated with operating under different systems. Therefore we call for ambitious efforts to facilitate the compliance with 28 different tax systems in the EU.
- Import and excise: A full internal market also needs systems to combat fraud in the recovery of excise duties. Such fraud restricts competition and strengthens the black market, but progress to eradicate it has been slow.