Law Commons^™

Vat Triangulation With A Us Middleman Vstr, C-587/10, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

It is not every day that an American firm finds itself in the middle of an EU VAT controversy that significantly develops the law. However, the September 27, 2012 decision of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) does just that. The case is Vogtländische Straβen-,Tief- und Rohrleitungsbau GmbH Rodewisch (VSTR) v. Finanzamt Plauen.

In November 1998 Atlantic International Trading Company (AIT), an American company established in New York, NY, purchased two stone-crushers from VSTR, a firm established in Germany. AIT quickly re-sold the stone-crushers to an end user established in Finland. The VSTR/AIT contract was “ex works,” that is AIT …

Vat Fraud & Triangulation, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing trader intra-community (MTIC) fraud has received a lot of domestic enforcement attention. True cross border enforcement (joint or coordinated multi-Member State audit) has been limited. There are signs that this is changing as the Member States become more aggressive in their search for revenue.

Along with this shift in enforcement focus, triangulation analysis has moved from being an interesting aspect of the MTIC fraud structure to the central element in a larger understanding of how a fraudster thinks and how he carries out his fraud. We are coming to understand that triangulations are not only the mechanism of how …

Real-Time Collection Of The Value-Added Tax: Some Business And Legal Implications, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Boryana Madzharova

Faculty Scholarship

Recent estimates of the level of VAT fraud in the EU are commensurate with the EU budget. With the Green paper on the future of VAT, the European Commission stressed the urgency and necessity of comprehensive VAT reforms. This paper analyses the business and legal implications of the recently proposed split-payment mechanism, which, if implemented, would move VAT’s method of collection to real-time. The discussion is positioned in the context of two increasingly visible trends in the EU – the general shift towards greater reliance on indirect taxation and the growing popularity of electronic payment instruments. The potential implementation of …

Mahagében Kft & Péter Dávid: Re-Directing The Eu Vat's Perfect Storm, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On June 21, 2012 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) rendered judgment on two Hungarian references, Mahagében kft v. Nemzeti Adó-és Vámhivatal Dél-dunántúli Regionális Adó Fölgazgatósága and Péter Dávid v. Nemzeti Adó-és Vámhivatal Dél-dunántúli Regionális Adó Fölgazgatósága (Mahagében/Dávid). The Mahagében/Dávid decisions clarify the CJEU’s earlier holdings in the joined cases of Alex Kittel v. Belgium and Belgium v. Recolta Recycling SPRL (Kittel/Recolta).

Kittel/Recolta is a critically important decision. It is central to the EU’s anti-fraud effort. It is one of three legal imperatives that earlier this year appeared to be coalescing into a Perfect (enforcement) Storm.

After …

A Perfect Storm In The Eu Vat: Kittel, 'R' And Marc, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

EU VAT authorities are close to turning the tables on missing traders. For many years organized fraudsters have been stealing huge amounts of VAT on the domestic re-sale of exempt cross-border supplies. Losses have been enormous whether the transactions are in goods (notably cell phones and computer chips) or in tradable services (CO2 permits and VoIP). No market has been safe from the fraudsters.

Answers are developing, but these answers may look more like Armageddon than measured enforcement. Solutions are so draconian, and so all-encompassing that very few intra-community traders will feel safe from the gathering storm. The situation is …

Black Swans: Recapitulative Statements/Vies (Vat) & Use Tax Reciprocity (Rst), Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

There is fundamentally no difference between a value added tax (VAT), and a retail sales tax (RST) when it comes to collecting the tax on cross-border sales. If (under a VAT) a seller is allowed to “zero-rate” cross-border sales, or if (under a RST) a seller is exempt from collecting the tax on cross-border sales, the critical enforcement question is exactly the same – how does the system assure that the buyer will self-assess (and pay) the tax?

The simple answer is that the tax administration audits. The more complicated answer notes that the effectiveness of the audit (by the …

Transfer Pricing: Data Dumps And Comparability - Us, Uk, Canadian, And Australian Case Studies, Richard Thompson Ainsworth, Andrew Shact

Faculty Scholarship

Comparability is the heart of transfer pricing. The OECD, U.K., Canadian, Australian, and U.S. transfer pricing rules all echo one another on how critically important the comparability analysis is. Performing this analysis and proving comparability, however, is a demanding exercise.

What makes proving comparability so difficult is that the analysis is two sided. Both controlled and uncontrolled transactions must be thoroughly analyzed. Just as much effort needs to be applied to determine the functions, contract terms, risks and the economic conditions for the unrelated party comparables as is spent on analyzing the related parties (taxpayers).

But there is more to …