Economy

EU: Milliardenschaden by Fraud

The European Union missed each year approximately 170 billion euros in VAT revenues. On the other hand wants the EU-Commission is now proceeding.

Each year, the member States together around 170 billion euros of VAT revenue is lost, it accounted for only around 50 billion fraud, said EU Vizekommissionschef Valdis Dombrovskis in Brussels. What to do with the balance of € 120 billion happened, he left open.

It was a Reform of the VAT collection on cross-border transactions. This is a closer cooperation between the member States is needed, because the country of origin should the tax on behalf of the country of destination charge. The EU authority will soon make a formal proposal to make; the tax policy in the Union is a minefield, because individual States can use their Veto a compromise to block.

Keyword “Karusselbetrug”

The procedure depends, among other things, against the so-called ‘missing trader’ Fraud. This lead to dealer goods VAT-free from other countries and sell it with tax. But instead of the amount to the tax authorities, then the scammers with the by the customer paid in tax. These or similar types of Trafficking can be repeated several times – it comes to the “carousel”. The scammers take advantage of the fact that deliveries via the EU’s internal borders free of tax.

Among the EU Finance Ministers has been going on for years about the containment of the carousel fraud debated, without a turn, succeeded. The former SPD Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück was in the EU with the proposal to enforce the value added tax to convert.

hf/rb (dpa)