Archivo del Autor: Business

Objectives, Proposals and Conclusions

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OBJECTIVES

The need to improve the current VAT system is manifested in the following:

v  Soften the complexity of the current system, reducing the high administrative burdens, so that the reduction of costs in regulatory compliance, as well as managing the recovery of tax by companies become more attractive to investors.

 

v  Improve the functioning of the single market by harmonizing rules at Community level, to minimize the inconvenience of having different VAT regimes.

 

v  Ensure the neutrality of the system through the revision and unification of the exemptions and tax benefits, as well as the establishment of mechanisms to avoid double taxation.

 

Strengthen the system, ensuring tax collection and reducing the vulnerability of the current system to tax avoidance and tax fraud.

PROPOSALS

The paragraph 5.3.3.2. of the Green Paper on the future of the VAT, related to ” Adapting the VAT system to large and pan-European businesses,” asks whether the current VAT system creates difficulties for cross-border transactions within a single company or group.
According to the European Commission, the legal structure (holding/subsidiaries or headquarter/branches) of businesses conducting economic activities in different Member States has a major influence on the VAT treatment of those activities. For example, it affects the rules on cross-border transactions between the different parts of the business and the calculation of deductible input VAT.
The Commission assumes that businesses complain about the lack of consistent and clear VAT rules suited to existing corporate structures. Tax authorities, on the other hand, are concerned about the opportunities for VAT avoidance schemes in complex corporate structures.

One of the measures proposed by the Commission in order to reduce VAT compliance costs on a large number of transactions within the EU, is that transactions between interrelated companies or supplies of goods between branches are outside the scope of VAT, as long as it would be ensured that such a move would not create unfair advantages for big businesses compared to smaller ones, or new means of fraud or tax avoidance.

CONCLUSION

Thus, should the European Commission discussion about the adaptation of large business for VAT is ultimately materialized, it is possible that transactions between interrelated companies or supplies of goods between branches become outside the scope of VAT, which will undoubtedly reduce costs for the entities involved.

Permanent establishment for VAT purposes

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VAT purposes

In particular, have this consideration:
- The place of management, branches, offices, factories, workshops, facilities, stores and, in general, agencies or representatives authorized to contract on behalf of the taxpayer. By agencies or representatives are understood those depending on the taxpayer, those acting on behalf of him, not those providing its services to third parties.

- Mines, quarries or dumps, oil or gas or other place of extraction of natural products;

- Construction, installation or assembly project which exists for more than twelve months. The condition of established occurs as a result of the duration of the works. May, therefore, be situations of forced-regularization (works with planned duration of 8 months that extend to 14 months), if reality does not confirm the forecasts made temporary (for calculation of the twelve months should be counted also the time taken by the outsourced on behalf of the contracting company, TEAC 06/04/03);
- Farms, forestry or livestock;
- The installations operated on a permanent basis by a businessman or professional for storage and subsequent delivery of its goods: it is necessary that the company has facilities (warehouses) as an owner or as a holder of real rights of use or lease of all or a fixed part of them (DGT 03.30.95).

 

- Centers of procurement of goods or services;

 

- Real property leased or operated by any other title. Landlords are considered established in Spain, and, therefore, acquire the status of taxpayers.

 

Until now, the definition of a permanent establishment for VAT purposes. Is a permanent establishment for VAT effects different to one for Corporate tax effects? Yes indeed and one does not condition the other.

To identify whether or not an entity acts as a permanent establishment for corporate tax purposes, we must consider, first of all, the existence of a double tax treaty with the country of residence of the applicant.

a) If there is an agreement between the country of residence of the taxpayer and the country where the company is going to act (for example, between the Netherlands and Germany and between Germany and Spain), we have to take into account the definition of permanent establishment contained in it, roughly coincident with the internal rules. Unless particular cases, the agreements currently in force fit the definition provided by the art. 5 of the OECD Double Tax Treaty Agreement.
In general terms, article 5 of the Model of Agreement defines a permanent establishment as a place of business through which an enterprise is wholly or partly carried on. Definition implies the following requirements:
- Required use of a facility, site or location from which the activity is carried on;

- Peer or linking of facilities to a place or a given space, with some degree of temporary stay;

- Need for productive activities that contribute to the overall benefit of the company, beyond the mere scope of residual or auxiliary.

The same article of the Model of Agreement includes certain assumptions that in any case determine the existence of a PE. In general, it is referred to auxiliary or preparatory activities by reference to the principal activity, through which a benefit clearly different from that obtained by the headquarters is not obtained, as they do not close a full business cycle. Some examples of merely ancillary activities are: the maintenance of a stock of goods for the sole purpose of storage, display or delivery; the mere purchase of goods or merchandise, or collecting information for the company.

Therefore, according to the Model of Agreement, the term permanent establishment (for the purposes of Corporate Tax), does not cover:

“The use of facilities solely for the purpose of storage, display or delivery of goods or merchandise belonging to the company.”

“Maintaining a stock of goods or merchandise belonging to the enterprise solely for the purpose of storage, display or delivery”

“The maintenance of a fixed place of business solely for the purpose of purchasing goods or merchandise or of collecting information for the company”

This means that the fact of renting a store on a permanent basis where you store the merchandise purchased and from where the sales are made, does not imply the existence of a permanent establishment for Corporate Tax purposes.
b) If a double tax treaty does not apply, we have to go to the delimitation of permanent establishment performed by the domestic law.

 

In conclusion, with this new outline of taxation for the provision of services, it is crucial to identify the client; because if the client is a taxpayer, the general rule asks for taxation on arrival, but, if the client cannot be identified as a taxpayer, the rule is at present taxation at source.

 

The objective of the Green Paper on the future of VAT (published by the European Commission in December 2010), is to launch a broad based consultation process with stakeholders on the functioning of the current VAT system and how it should be reframed in the future, in order to achieve a tax system simpler, more robust and efficient.

Vat puroposes permanent establishment

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PERMANENT ESTABLISHMENT FOR VAT PUROPOSES

Article 53 of the Implementations’ Regulation EU/282/2011 deals with the question of when it is understood that a permanent establishment is involved in the provision of services or in the delivery of goods.

According to this rule, it is considered that the permanent establishment of a taxpayer takes part in an operation, hence, is liable to pay tax –debtor- (Article 192), when the taxpayer uses the technical and human resources of that establishment for the operations inherent to the delivery of goods or the provision of services either before or during the delivery or provision.
There is no mention (unlike the proposal from the Commission and the Committee of VAT) the use of the establishment’s resources for subsequent operations to delivery or provision, such as after-sales warranty. The application of different criteria by the Member States may cause conflicts of jurisdiction in the future.

For tax neutrality purposes, the intervention of an establishment in auxiliary tasks (among which are mentioned as an example, accounting, billing or collection management), does not imply that the establishment resources’ are used to carry out a supply of goods or services.

The article includes a presumption of intervention that allows a proof against: the issue of an invoice with the VAT number of an establishment presumes its intervention in the realization of a supply of goods or services.

Finally, article 54 of the Regulation stipulates that in the Member State where the place of business of the company is located, it will always have the condition of established. The intervention criterion of Article 53 does not operate in this case.

According to the internal regulation (art. 69.3 Spanish VAT Act), it is considered a permanent establishment:

1) The head office of the economic activity: where entrepreneurs or professionals centralize management and the normal course of their business or professional activity.

2) Permanent establishment: any fixed business place where entrepreneurs or professionals carry out economic activities, which requires a warehouse or a space in which the employer performs such activities or parts of them (deliveries or services) or, at least, preparatory operations of these (purchases or acquisitions).

 

The ECJ points the following conditions to define it:

a)    Have a minimum structure in a Member State different from the entrepreneur head office. It must be a fixed place of business with organizational resources of the business activity.

b)   This structure may mean the concurrence of a particular organization, a set of material and human resources involving a certain structure.

c)    Permanence, in time, of the place of business, with a will to continue.

d)   Autonomy in providing services or carrying out the activities. The autonomy means to attribute the operations to the permanent establishment and not to the headquarters (parent company), which involves certain power of decision in the management of operations (07/04/85 ECJ, Case C-168/84, 20.2.97, Case C-260/95).

PLACE OF BUSINESS

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PLACE OF BUSINESS – HEAD OFFICE

The European Court of Justice has noted in several judgments, being particularly interesting the statement of 28 June 2007 in Case C-73/06, Luxembourg Planzer, that “place of business” is the place where key decisions related to the general management of the activity are taken and where management tasks are exercised.
In addition, to determine the location of the head office of the economic activity of a company, the Court notes that certain factors should be considered, among which, stresses: the registered office, place of central administration, the meeting place of the executives of the company and that, usually identical, in which it is decided the general policy of the company. They can also take into account other elements, such as:  the home address of key executives, the meeting place of shareholder meetings, the place of keeping of records of administrative and accounting, and the place of the main development of financial activities, especially, banking activities.

 

Among these factors, the Court distinguishes a first set of them which has to be assessed in all cases, and a second group of them that can be taken into account (but are not mandatory) if the application of the first group of factors is not enough to determine, accurately, the place of business.

Among the factors mentioned in the first group, and of mandatory consideration, there is no priority whatsoever. Neither is any ranking of factors in the second group. The definition of place of business of Article 10 of the Regulation starts from these case-law criterions and places the head office where the central administration functions are exercised, but to avoid conflicts between the factors -for example, in case of each one could be located in a different country: registered office in Luxembourg, the place of decision making in the Netherlands, the meeting place of the directors in Strasbourg (France)-, the Regulation opts for the criterion of the place where fundamental decisions regarding the overall management of the company are taken. Other factors listed by the case-law as the Board’s meeting place, where keeping the accounts reside or where bank accounts are, are not included in Article 10 of the Regulation, although were considered by the Commission’s proposal. These factors may be valued as evidences when determining the place where the functions of central administration of the company are performed.

Finally, the Regulation adopts a precautionary measure and warns that a postal address, by itself, is not considered a place of business (head office), in order to avoid possible abuses like those happened in the past.

Place of taxation

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Delivery of goods.

The general rule is very simple: the delivery of goods is taxed in the Member State where the goods are physically located, that is, where they effectively are at the time of being sold or at the place where goods are made available to the acquirer.

For certain cases this simple rule is not enough, so that we may apply special rules. We refer to the following supplies:
A. When the place of departure of the consignment or the place of the transport of personal property that is imported is located in a third country.
B. Deliveries of goods that are subject to installation or assembly.
C. Deliveries of goods to passengers who are carried aboard a ship, aircraft or trains.
D. Deliveries of natural gas and electricity through the distribution systems.
E. The special second-hand goods schemes, including vehicles, pieces of art and antiques, have their own rules of location.

 
Provision of Services. Place of taxation.
The location of services is a particularly important and sensitive issue for VAT purposes.

 

The Commission and the Member States felt that the proper functioning of the internal market required a change in the rules of Directive 2006/112/EC, “aimed at modernizing and simplifying the operation of the common VAT system.” The new rules should respect the concept that “in any provision of services, the place of taxation should be, in general, that where the consumption takes place.” This meant a major change in VAT philosophy because it expressly left the principle of VAT taxation in the country of origin as a basic and foremost rule, something that has already been happening in practice in view of the fact that each directive’s reform since 1992, which the taxation of services was reformed, had recourse to the rule of destination, in different ways, for new services.
In regard to the provision of services to taxpayers (Business to Business, B2B) the general rule for determining the place of delivery is where the recipient of the services is established. The Directive includes new rules, difficult to implement, for taxpayers with also non taxable activities and for legal persons who, without being a taxable person, are identified for the purposes of VAT, which will be treated as taxpayers with respect to all services rendered to them. According to general rules, those rules should not be extended to services received by a taxpayer for personal use or for their own staff use.
When services are provided to non taxable persons (Business to Consumer, B2C), the general rule is still that the place of supply of the service  is where the supplier has established the head office of its business activity.
There is, however, a large number of exceptions to the two general rules mentioned above.
According to the Directive, when a taxable person receives services from a supplier non established in its own Member State, the reverse charge system will generally be mandatory, which means that the client must make the self-impact and self-assessment of the amount of VAT on the acquired service.
The new system is completed with rules for identification and verification of such identification and rules for the VAT declaration, all electronically, and the requirement of a new formal obligation, because it includes in the summary statement of intra-community operations not only transactions concerning goods but also services provided  to taxable persons and legal persons non-taxable but identified for VAT purposes to which it has provided taxable services with regard to which it is able to apply the reverse charge system.

 

The service provider shall determine the taxable status of the recipient and if the recipient acts in his capacity as taxpayer and not as a final consumer of the service; finally the service provider will have to consider whether the service is provided to the head office or to a permanent establishment located in a different country from the place of business.
In B2B transactions, as previously mentioned, location of the service will be determined, firstly, by locating the head office of the economic activity of the recipient, secondly, considering the concept of permanent establishment and, finally, as a residual criterion, the one of the recipient´s domicile.

 

In B2C transactions (B2C), the location of the service will be determined by locating the head office of the economic activity of the provider and, secondly, considering the concept of permanent establishment and, finally, as a residual criterion, the one of the   supplier´s domicile.

 

The concepts of place of business (head office), permanent establishment, domicile and usual residence are not defined by the Directive.

 

It is essential, though, that a common definition is applied uniformly in all Member States. To do so, even if the ECJ has dictated several decisions about these concepts, a legal definition is preferred, in the interest of legal certainty for taxpayers and tax administrations.