The European Association of Co-operative Banks (EACB) gladly takes an opportunity to comment the Commission’s public consultation reviewing the VAT rules for financial and insurance services.
The EACB supports the modernization of the VAT treatment of financial services as the existing regulations are out-of-date and no longer reflect the developments of new products and services. The current situation leads to legal uncertainty and an unbalanced level playing field and thus a lack of neutrality.
In this respect, our key messages are:
- Maintain the current VAT exemption.
- Modernize and harmonize the rules applicable to financial services.
- Define exempt outsourced services according to relevant rulings of the European Court of Justice delivered in recent years.
- Open cost sharing group arrangements for financial services.
- Mandatory and explicit rules for VAT grouping in every member state.
- Explicit rules for the determination of deductible input VAT amount.