October 2023
Stakeholder input paper
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VAT in the Digital Age platform rules
As representatives of European homeowners, short-term accommodation and passenger transport platforms, as well as small travel
and tourism operators,
we strongly recommend pausing
the provisions for the deemed supplier regime under ViDA until a thorough,
data driven analysis may be undertaken.
This would allow time to, on the one hand, conduct an in-depth quantitative and qualitative assessment of the potential implications of
this package on EU businesses, consumers and taxation authorities and, on the other hand, to assess the impact of other relevant pieces
of EU legislation, such as 7th revision of the Directive on Administrative Cooperation in the field of taxation (DAC-7) and the future
Regulation on Short Term Rental data collection and sharing.
We believe that it is crucial to rethink the current approach in order to safeguard European consumers from increased prices and supply
limitations and to protect the multitude of EU businesses of different sizes and shapes (short
term rental ecosystem you can find here)
and non-professionals whose competitiveness would be put at risk should the DSR under ViDA package be implemented.
In accordance with Art. 5 (4) TEU as well as Art. 69 TFEU, Union action must abide by the fundamental legal principle of proportionality.
This principle requires that measures are appropriate, necessary and reasonable in order to attain the envisaged objectives. When
considering the objectives outlined for the VAT in the digital age proposals, we sincerely doubt as to whether the measures proposed are
indeed proportional taking into consideration that, first, no evidence has effectively been presented of distortion of competition between
online platforms and supplies performed in the traditional economy. Moreover, the majority of supplies which will be taxed under the
proposed regulation are generally not 'escaping VAT taxation' but simply not subject to VAT based on effective local rules (e.g. VAT
exemptions applicable to STRs and passenger transport and SME thresholds). Moreover, according to the ViDA Study the blocked input
VAT (12.2 pct of turnover) which is a cost to the underlying non-VAT registered accommodation providers corresponds to the estimated
output VAT (12.5 pct) that would have to be charged so even at present there is no ‘escaping VAT taxation’.
Secondly, if the objective of
the Member States were truly to tax all services in the STR- and passenger transport sector, this could be attained by adopting much less
impactful changes to the law. As such, we strongly question whether this legislation is in accordance with fundamental principles of EU
law.