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European VAT News

European VAT News

By November 18, 2022No Comments

Ireland

The Irish government recently confirmed the following VAT rate changes during its budget announcement for 2023.

  • An extension to the 9% VAT rate that applies to gas and electricity until 28 February 2023. This rate was due to revert to 13.5% on 1 November 2022.

  • From January 2023, the VAT rate that applies to newspapers and defibrillators will be reduced from 9% and 23% respectively, to 0%.

Lithuania

The Lithuanian government has confirmed that it will extend the VAT rate cut to 9% on hospitality, sporting, and cultural services to 31 December 2023.

The VAT rate on these services was reduced from 21% to help the Lithuanian hospitality sector recover from the impact of COVID-19 back in 2021.

Luxembourg

The Luxembourg government has announced that it will reduce most VAT rates in the country by 1% from 1 January 2023.

This reduction is being introduced to fight high rates of inflation in the country, and means that the:

  • Standard VAT rate will drop from 17% to 16%

  • Reduced VAT rates will drop from 14% and 8% to 13% and 7%

Portugal

The Portuguese tax authorities have confirmed that from 1 January 2023, non-resident businesses VAT registered in the country will be required to:

  • Produce invoices via certified invoicing software that can allocate a unique ATCUD code – This is a unique eight-digit code that is allocated by the Portuguese tax authorities prior to them being issued.

  • Include a QR code on their paper or PDF invoices – This is a unique two-dimensional bar code.

  • Report invoices monthly via a SAF-T Billing file – This contains full details of the invoice and will either have to be submitted manually via an interface or a webservice, or automatically via the electronic invoicing software provider.

It’s hoped that the introduction of these requirements on non-resident companies will help to monitor VAT invoices and prevent fraud.

Switzerland

From 1 January 2024, the Swiss tax authorities will increase the VAT rates in the country as follows:

  • Standard rate – 7.7% to 8.1%

  • Reduced rate – 2.5% to 2.6%

  • Special VAT rate for accommodation – 3.7% to 3.8%

This is being implemented to try to raise funds to cover the pension deficit caused by the ‘baby boomer’ generation.

The above information was kindly provided by Fiscal Solutions (UK), www.fiscalsolutions.co.uk; contact: [email protected].