New EU legislation will come into effect on 1 January 2010 which will affect the treatment of VAT and the process of refunding VAT to businesses. The legislation also introduces new rules with regard to place of supply of services and provides for the introduction of a new electronic VAT refund procedure for Intra-community claims.

Currently all claims for a refund of Intra-community VAT must be prepared and processed manually by the tax authorities in the relevant EU state. The new Directive will allow traders and/or their agents to submit applications for the refund of VAT incurred in another EU State electronically from 1 January 2010.

In order to facilitate the new system, applications for a refund of Intra-community VAT must be submitted using a new portal “Electronic VAT Refund” or “EVR”, which will be available in ROS.

The full article is available at 2.07.