Press Release: VAT fraud: The European Commission presents an action plan to better combat VAT fraud

The European Commission adopted a Communication presenting a short term action plan with a list of future legislative measures to enhance the capacity of tax administrations to prevent or detect VAT fraud (in particular 'missing trader fraud') and to recover taxes. Moreover, it adopted two measures to amend the VAT Directive. The first aims to prevent the existing abuse by fraudsters of the VAT exemption at importation and the second to give Member States the possibility to make the supplier of goods liable for the VAT loss created by his missing customer in another Member State, when he did not report his supply to his VAT authority.