As novas regras IVA para o comércio online

: maior simplicidade para operadores económicos e maior transparência para consumidores?

Abstract

This dissertation, in addition to making known the new package of VAT rules for online commerce, has the clear purpose of assessing the practicability of such rules, counter balancing them with the purpose for which they were created. As a starting point, we will briefly discuss the new legal framework for VAT within the European Community. In a second moment, we will focus on the importance and necessity of these new rules in online commerce. In detail, we will analyze the new and extended special regimes applicable to the provision of services and the distance selling of goods within and outside the European Union. Finally, and because the commercial relationships that are established are not always as linear as much as we would like, we will try to expose and address various and successive practical hypotheses that the taxable person/trader will face. Also, it should be noted that despite the European Commission's laudable efforts to harmonize the VAT system in Europe, particularly in the context of intra-community trade, seeking to make it more competitive and simplified, the truth is that the new VAT E-Commerce Package as it was conceived, it left out the regulation of some essential aspects for its full applicability. Such an absence will certainly foster occasions for uncertainty and a certain amount of resistance by the taxable persons themselves to the detriment of the advantages that were intended to be achieved within the Community's single market, in order to making it more operational, functional and less complex. In this way, we will conclude that it is necessary to complete the existing legal framework, seeking to harmonize the most relevant practical aspects in the application of the new VAT rules in order to achieve the much-desired simplicity for suppliers and transparency for consumers.

Date of Award	1 Jun 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria Odete Batista de Oliveira (Supervisor)