On 6th May 2015, the European Commission announced its Strategy for the EU Digital Single Market.
In this context the Commission should make legislative proposals to modernise the VAT for cross-border e-commerce and reduce the administrative burden of businesses arising from different VAT regimes. This includes:
- extending the single electronic registration and payment mechanism to intra-EU and third country online sales of tangible goods to private consumers;
- introducing a common EU-wide simplification measure (VAT threshold) to help small start-up e-commerce businesses;
- allowing for home country controls including a single audit of cross border businesses for VAT purposes and;
- removing the VAT exemption for the importation of small consignments from suppliers in third countries.