The European Commission recently published a proposal to establish quarterly information-reporting obligations on Payment Service Providers such as credit card and direct debit providers. This would allow Member State anti-fraud specialists (the ‘Eurofisc’ network) to exchange and analyse certain payment data received from such providers to identify VAT fraud in the e-commerce sector.

The Commission also published a proposal to improve the exchange of information between Member States’ tax administrations and the coordination of their actions, including joint audits.

Ireland already has mandatory reporting obligations placed on Merchant Acquirers who must provide details of payments made to merchants through payment card (debit and credit card) transactions on an annual basis.