The European Commission has requested Italy to lift restrictions on the free movement of capital relating to investments in real estate while the United Kingdom has been called upon to align its national practices on VAT Mini One-Stop-Shop scheme with EU rules.

Italy received a reasoned opinion for excluding EU citizens of non-Italian nationality who do not intend to settle in Italy from a reduced rate regime on their first purchase of non-luxury housing in Italy and is in contravention of the free movement of capital according to the Commission.

The UK received a letter of formal notice for failing to collect and transmit to other member states the bank account details for each taxable person registered for the recently agreed, EU-wide system for VAT collection on online sales of e-services (VAT Mini One-Stop-Shop).