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Opting for Opting-In? An Evaluation of the European Commission's Proposals for Reforming VAT on Financial Services

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  • Rita de la Feria
  • Ben Lockwood

Abstract

This paper provides a legal and economic analysis of the European Commission’s recent proposals for reforming the application of VAT to financial services, with particular focus on their “third pillar”, under which firms would be allowed to opt-into taxation on exempt insurance and financial services. From a legal perspective, we show that the proposals’ “first and second pillar” would give rise to considerable interpretative and qualification problems, resulting in as much complexity and legal uncertainty as the current regime. Equally, an option to tax could potentially follow significantly different legal designs, which would give rise to discrepancies in the application of the option amongst Member States. On the economic side, we show that quite generally, when firms cannot coordinate their behaviour, they have an individual incentive to opt-in on business-to-business (B2B) transactions, but not on business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions. We also show that opting in eliminates the cost disadvantage that EU financial services firms face in competing with foreign firms for B2B sales. But, these results do not hold if firms can coordinate their behaviour. An estimate of the upper bound on the amount of tax revenue that might be lost from allowing opting-in is provided for a number of EU countries.
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Suggested Citation

  • Rita de la Feria & Ben Lockwood, 2010. "Opting for Opting-In? An Evaluation of the European Commission's Proposals for Reforming VAT on Financial Services," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 171-202, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifs:fistud:v:31:y:2010:i:2:p:171-202
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ben Lockwood, 2010. "How Should Financial Intermediation Services be Taxed?," Working Papers 1014, Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.
    2. Michael Firth & Kenneth McKenzie, 2012. "The GST and Financial Services: Pausing for Perspective," SPP Research Papers, The School of Public Policy, University of Calgary, vol. 5(29), September.
    3. Joaquim Sarmento, 2016. "The Determinants Of Value Added Tax Revenues In The European Union," Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, ISEG, Universidade de Lisboa, vol. 21(2), pages 79-99.
    4. Sijbren Cnossen, 2013. "A proposal to apply the Kiwi-VAT to insurance services in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 20(5), pages 867-883, October.
    5. Leon Bettendorf & Sijbren Cnossen, 2014. "The Long Arm of the European VAT, Exemplified by the Dutch Experience," CESifo Working Paper Series 4730, CESifo.
    6. Giancarlo Corsetti & Michael P. Devereux & John Hassler & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Xavier Vives, 2011. "Chapter 5: Taxation and Regulation of the Financial Sector," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 147-169, February.
    7. Thiess Buettner & Katharina Erbe, 2014. "Revenue and welfare effects of financial sector VAT exemption," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(6), pages 1028-1050, December.
    8. López-Laborda, Julio & Peña, Guillermo, 2016. "Is financial VAT neutral to financial sector size?," Economics Discussion Papers 2016-31, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Gabriel RAITA, 2021. "A Theoretical Approach Of The Fiscal System In Romania," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 1(23), pages 1-5.
    10. Ismail Baydur & Fatih Yilmaz, 2021. "VAT Treatment of the Financial Services: Implications for the Real Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 53(8), pages 2167-2200, December.
    11. Ben Lockwood & Erez Yerushalmi, 2019. "How should payment services be taxed?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 53(1), pages 21-47, June.
    12. Presiana Nenkova & Angel Angelov, 2019. "Assessing the Effects of Imposing VAT on the Services Provided by the Banking Sector – The Case of Bulgaria," Economic Studies journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 124-143.

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