2023-07-03 06:00:28
An employee on the Colissimo parcel sorting platform equipped with state-of-the-art sorting machines in Thillay (Val-d’Oise), December 15, 2022. EMMANUEL DUNAND / AFP
For a long time, the game was worth the candle: shrewd consumers circumvented value added tax (VAT) by buying from unscrupulous merchants outside the European Union (EU) products charged up to 20% under their usual price. But since July 2021, theComing into force of one reform of the European VAT directive broke the rules.
First observation: it has become much more difficult to find dishonest merchants on the major marketplaces, such as Amazon or Cdiscount. Because since the reform, they are the ones who have to pay VAT, and no longer the many sellers they host. They are now liable for the tax for each purchase they facilitate. “The major marketplaces quickly aligned themselves”notes Odile Courjon, lawyer in customs law. “They were forced to clean up among the thousands of referenced sellers” by chasing small merchants who defrauded VAT.
But not all e-commerce sales take place on these marketplaces. There are still independent sellers, who have their own sales site and some of which are located outside the EU, in countries where sanctions are difficult to apply. These can continue to sell products without VAT to European consumers, without being really worried.
Deductible canceled
Except, perhaps, when sending their package. In the past, many of these merchants declared a parcel value of less than 22 euros, which allowed them to escape VAT. This exemption has been abolished by the reform and they must now pay VAT from the first penny. Result: the number of taxable packages has been multiplied by six. “For 2022, this represents an increase in revenue of 1.4 billion eurosbelieves Patrice Pillet, head of VAT at Taxud, the European customs department. About 20% of this amount goes to France. »
Read the story: Article reserved for our subscribers VAT fraud: how Europe struck a blow with Operation “Admiral”
There remains a trick for dishonest sellers: avoid private international carriers, accustomed to paying VAT, by entrusting their parcels to La Poste, an import channel where this tax was until recently rarely paid. “Historically, La Poste was out of the game. It did not know the value of the parcels it was passing through”, summarizes Xavier Pascual, Deputy Delegate for Strategy at the General Directorate of Customs. But, here again, the reform has complicated the task of fraudsters: La Poste now has the obligation to scan each package entering France, which automatically triggers the sending to customs of an electronic declaration mentioning the value of the product.
You have 55.12% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.
#Internet #VAT #fraud #complicated #eradicated