Like any tax, the VAT is vulnerable to evasion and fraud. But its credit and refund mechanism does offer unique opportunities for abuse, and this has recently become an urgent concern in the European Union (EU). This paper describes the main forms of noncompliance distinctive to a VAT, considers how they can be addressed, and assesses evidence on their extent in high-income countries. While the practical significance of current difficulties in the EU should not be over-stated, administrative measures alone may prove insufficient to deal with them, and a fundamental redesign of the VAT treatment of intra-community trade required. The current difficulties in the EU largely reflect circumstances that would not apply in the United States.

Serving as an introduction to one of the "hottest" topics in financial crime, the Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud, this new and original book aims to analyze and decrypt the fraud and explore multi-disciplinary avenues, thereby exposing nuances and shades that remain concealed by traditional taxation oriented researches. Quantifying the impact of the fraud on the real economy underlines the structural damages propagated by this crime in the European Union. The ‘fruadsters’ benefit when policy changes are inflicted in an economic space without a fully fledged legal framework. Geopolitical events like the creation of the Eurasian Union and 'Brexit' are analyzed from the perspective of the VAT fraud, thereby underlining the foreseeable risks of such historical turnarounds. In addition, this book also provides a unique collection of case studies that depict the main characteristics of VAT fraud. Introduction to VAT Fraud will be of interest to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regards to banking and finance law, international law, criminal law, taxation, accounting, and financial crime. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of law, financial crime, technology, accounting and taxation.

The Federal Republic of Germany passed a law to combat VAT fraud in international ecommerce. The new legislation is described and discussed. Ecommerce sellers will have to provide their tax registration and a certificate issued by the competent tax authority that shows their VAT compliance to platform operators. Otherwise platform operators are liable for VAT evasion of the respective ecommerce sellers. Without providing a tax registration and the certificate platform operators will not allow sellers to sell on their platforms anymore. The transition period will be much shorter for overseas sellers than for EU sellers. Practical problems will arise at the beginning likely. Suspension of accounts can be the consequence.

This research report aims at filling the knowledge gap concerning organized business crime by highlighting one specific phenomenon, that of EU cross-border VAT fraud. It intends to provide insight into: the effectiveness of the present VAT control system; the vulnerability of legitimate trade to criminal inroads; and, the development of organized crime in this area.

VAT is an important tax, contributing to about one fifth of total tax levied by Member States. The EU Member States are missing EUR 147 billion or about 12% of the VAT revenue (2016 VAT Gap). A part of the loss can be linked to fraud and evasion; the challenge for the Fiscalis Project Group was how to identify the part of the VAT gap related to VAT fraud and evasion. As VAT fraud and evasion can be committed in various ways, the scope was limited to the Missing Trader Intra Community (MTIC) fraud. The report is part of a series including "The Concept of Tax Gaps - Report on VAT Gap Estimations") and "The Concept of Tax Gaps - Report II: Corporate Income Tax Gap Estimation Methodologies". The Report explains the mechanism of VAT fraud, describes the VAT fraud types, insisting on the MTIC fraud; reviews the MTIC fraud literature; describes VAT fraud estimation methodologies; lists the possible data sources for the estimation of VAT fraud; and reflects on the possibility of a European approach.

A previous IMF Working Paper on value-added tax (VAT) refunds (WP/07/31, by Keen and Smith) describes the main forms of VAT noncompliance and concludes that VAT is susceptible to evasion and fraud like any other tax. This paper shows the insidious nature and extent of VAT refund fraud in selected EU countries and argues that this type of noncompliance requires tax administrations to adopt a coordinated strategy and deploy a range of countermeasures to combat this threat. Because such fraud is primarily a criminal legal issue, tackling it successfully will require cooperation, both internationally between VAT administrations and nationally between tax authorities and the judiciary. The paper’s focus is primarily on advanced economies in the context of the EU, but many of the recommendations are applicable to emerging market and developing countries. A separate IMF How to Note discusses managing VAT refunds in developing countries.

The G20, the OECD and the EU have taken several initiatives to improve transparency and exchange of information to combat tax avoidance and tax evasion, including VAT fraud. A coordinated international approach seems to be the only solution to effectively fight VAT fraud within the EU. An analysis of the developments in international cooperation, however, shows that Member States (MS) seem to underuse other means of international cooperation that exist besides the exchange of information. The exchange of information in its turn seems to be mainly used within the national context. The authors conclude that due to a lack of coherence in the 'control' systems of MS and due to the fact that 'coordination' does not always mean 'collaboration', MS still seem to address this 'European' problem mainly on a national level which does not lead to a substantial decrease of the level of VAT fraud (including a lower tax gap) within the EU.