Eichel Calls For EU To Speed Up Impositition Of VAT On Internet Trading
by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels
16 November 2004

According to a report in the national press, German Finance Minister Hans Eichel is urging the European Union to accelerate the creation of a new regulation that will lead to the levying of value added tax on trade conducted over the internet.

Arguing that “too much is missed by VAT,” Eichel told the German daily Bild Zeitung:

“The taxation of Internet trade has to be agreed at the European level and then controlled more closely.”

However, Eichel also told the newspaper that he thought the creation of any new taxes was unnecessary.

When asked whether consideration was being given to a ‘text tax’ on mobile phone SMS messages, as it is in Italy, the Finance Minister announced that such a proposal was “out of the question.”

A proposal laid out in the Italian parliament last week calling for a surtax on text messages received short shrift from both the public and some members of the government.

The Italians are the most prolific senders of text messages in the EU, with 100,000 messages being sent every second, and it is thought that even a small tax could raise hundreds of millions of euros.

A comprehensive report describing the stage of development of e-commerce in most major offshore jurisdictions, including the legislative regime, is available in the Tax News Reports Shop at http://www.tax-news.com/reportshop/