The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) discussed two VAT-related proposals at its meeting last month. The topics discussed included the Commission’s proposal for a reverse charge mechanism and aligning the VAT rate of online publications with hardcopy publications.

The Commission proposes a generalised reverse charge mechanism to move the responsibility for reporting VAT transactions from the seller to the buyer of a good or service for the purposes of reducing VAT fraud. However, ministers were unable to reach an agreement and decided to come back to it at their next meeting in October.

Ministers also discussed the “e-publications” proposal which would allow member states to apply non-standard VAT rates to electronic publications and potentially align VAT rules between physical and electronic forms for publications. Ministers were again unable to reach an agreement and the matter will be discussed at the next meeting in October.