VAT accounting periods

3.6.2016

Question for written answer E-004627-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Julia Pitera (PPE)

On 29 April 2016 the Polish Press Agency published an interview with a member of the VAT Expert Group, an advisory body at the Commission, in which it emerged that: ‘Criminals take advantage of quarterly figures, since the tax authorities do not know that a person has not declared or paid tax until three months later. […] Shortening the period from every quarter to every month will accelerate the flow of information and the identification of fraudsters’.

1. How long are the VAT accounting periods in the individual Member States?2. Has the Commission carried out any studies showing that there is a link between the length of the VAT accounting period and the scale of tax fraud?3. Has it carried out any studies to investigate whether and to what extent shortening the tax period to once a month would affect the administrative burden?