"What kind of firm you are and how big, directly affects compliance costs," said Dr. Grzegorz Poniatowski at the VAT Management Summit in Berlin

Dr. Grzegorz Poniatowski, the Director of Fiscal Policy Studies at CASE, attended a VAT Management Summit in Berlin on 24-25 May 2018.

The subject of the summit was VAT Management practical examples: best practice from leading companies’ experts. During the conference, international experts discussed the latest VAT issues and viable refinements together with the possible ways of redesigning operations.

The focus of Dr. Poniatowski’s presentation was “The compliance cost of VAT – an EU perspective”. Dr. Poniatowski discussed the problem of VAT compliance costs in particular Member States, and the influence of systemic factors and impact of invoicing rules on VAT compliance costs.

The CASE director said that VAT compliance is expensive for firms, since higher complexity equals higher compliance costs, and that “what kind of firm you are and how big, directly affects compliance costs.” Dr. Poniatowski also noted that returns, reports and issuance of invoices account for the vast majority of VAT compliance costs.

The summit was organized by Uniglobal with the aim of bringing together VAT experts to discuss current developments in the field.