Businesses established for VAT in the EU may recover VAT incurred in other member States under what is known as the 8th Directive. The rules for doing this were changed from 1st January 2010 as part of last year’s VAT Package so that claims must now generally be made electronically via the competent authorities in the Member State in which the claimant is established. In making the changes, the overall time limits were extended from 6 months to 9 months after the end of the calendar year to which these claims relate.
Unfortunately, the refund portals in some member States have not been functioning correctly. This has led the Commission to propose temporarily extending the deadline for the submission of the 2009 cross-border VAT refund claims. The effect of this will be that claims relating to 2009 may be submitted at any time up to 31 March 2011.
Anyone wanting further clarification on this may contact Peter Landon or their usual CWE contact.