EC as regards reduced rates of VAT - Main contents

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dossier	COM(2008)428 - Amendment of Directive 2006/112/EC as regards reduced rates of VAT.
document	COM(2008)428
date	June 1, 2009

table>(1)Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (3) authorises Member States to apply one or two reduced rates which may not be lower than 5 % and are applicable only to a restrictive list of supplies of goods and services.

(2)

The communication on VAT rates other than standard VAT rates which the Commission presented to the European Parliament and the Council in 2007 concluded that the application of reduced VAT rates to locally supplied services poses no real detriment to the smooth functioning of the internal market and may, under certain conditions, have positive effects in terms of job creation and of combating the informal economy. It is therefore appropriate to allow Member States the possibility of applying reduced VAT rates to the labour-intensive services covered by the temporary provisions applicable until the end of 2010 as well as to restaurant and catering services.

(3)

With respect to the supply of alcoholic and/or non-alcoholic beverages in the framework of restaurant and catering services, it may be justified to provide a different treatment of those beverages from the treatment provided for in the framework of the supply of foodstuffs; it is appropriate to provide explicitly that a Member State may include or exclude the supply of alcoholic and/or non-alcoholic beverages when applying a reduced rate to the supply of restaurant and catering services referred to in Annex III of Directive 2006/112/EC.

(4)

Directive 2006/112/EC should furthermore be amended in order to allow for the application of reduced rates or an exemption respectively in a limited number of specific situations for social or health reasons and in order to clarify and update to technical progress the reference to books in its Annex III.

(5)

The content of certain provisions of Directive 2006/112/EC concerning existing derogations and the list of Annex IV thereto will be covered by the list of supplies of goods and services to which a reduced rate may be applied on the basis of this Directive. For reasons of clarity those provisions and Annex IV of Directive 2006/112/EC should be deleted.

(6)

In accordance with point 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making (4), Member States are encouraged to draw up, for themselves and in the interests of the Community, their own tables illustrating, as far as possible, the correlation between this Directive and the transposition measures, and to make them public.

(7)	Directive 2006/112/EC should therefore be amended accordingly,