The European Commission proposes postponing entry into force of VAT directives on e-commerce for goods and of exchange of information requirements under DAC6

Spain - 05 / 09 / 2020

Spain Tax Alert

The crisis caused by the spread of COVID-19 has led Brussels to propose the entry into force of VAT directives 2017/2455 and 2019/1995 on July 31, 2021; and to propose new time periods for the filing and exchange of information under Council Directive 2011/16/EU (DAC6).

The VAT rules on e-commerce transactions for goods (and on distance sales generally) are about to change considerably as a result of directives 2017/2455 and 2019/1995. Implementation of these rules in the member states was originally required by January 1, 2021.

However, the new provisions require the putting in place of management and monitoring procedures, by the operators concerned, and very particularly by the member states, although, in the current situation (in which governments’ priorities are focused on combatting COVID-19), not all member states appear to be ready to undertake an adaptation to the new rules in the time limit. For this reason, it has proposed postponing the entry into force of these provision until July 31, 2021.

Similarly, the European Commission has proposed postponing the time limits for filing and exchanging information in under DAC6. More specifically:

Postponing the date for the beginning of the period for reporting the cross-border arrangements featured in Annex IV to DAC6 from July 1, 2020 to October 1, 2020. In the case of “marketable arrangements”, the first reporting period for intermediaries will take place on January 31, 2021.
Postponing the date of the first exchange of information by member states on the cross-border arrangements featured in Annex IV to DAC6, from October 31, 2020 to January 31, 2021.
Postponing the date for reporting “historical” cross-border arrangements (i.e. arrangements that became reportable from June 25, 2018 to June 30, 2020) from August 31, 2020 to November 30, 2020.

It also allows the postponement period to be extended once more, for a maximum of three additional months, depending on how the pandemic unfolds.

DAC 6 will nevertheless still start to apply on July 1, 2020 and the cross-border arrangements carried out during the proposed postponement will have to be communicated when that postponement ends.