Communication in accordance with Article 395 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC

In accordance with Article 395 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (the VAT Directive) the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, may authorise any Member State to apply special measures for derogation from that Directive in order to simplify the procedure for charging the tax or to prevent certain types of tax evasion or avoidance. As this procedure provides for derogations from the general principles of VAT, in accordance with the consistent rulings from the Court of Justice of the European Union, such derogations should be limited in scope and proportionate.

By letter registered with the Commission on 3 April 2013, the United Kingdom has requested to be authorised to continue a measure derogating from Article 193 of the VAT Directive. In accordance with Article 395(2) of that Directive, the Commission informed the other Member States by letter dated 14 May 2013 of the request made by the United Kingdom. By letter dated 15 May 2013, the Commission notified the United Kingdom that it had all the information it considered necessary for appraisal of the request.

The United Kingdom requests to be authorised to continue to apply the reverse charge mechanism in relation to mobile phones and integrated circuit devices for which it previously had obtained a derogation in April 2007. This measure was limited in time, and had an expiry date of 30 April 2009. This expiry date was subsequently extended to 30 April 2011.

EUR-Lex: COM(2013)317: Follow the progress of this communication through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2013:317:FIN

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