The European Payment Institutions Federation, the European Banking Federation, the European Savings and Retail Banking Group and the European Association of Co-operative Banks note the adoption today by the ECOFIN Council of the proposal on VAT-related information reporting requirements imposed on Banks and Payment Service Providers.

Throughout the legislative procedure we have consistently raised concerns about the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposal as drafted. As outlined in our recent Joint Statement, these concerns have not been taken into account to a degree that would give comfort to the industry that the reporting requirements can be implemented with reasonable efforts and can result in meaningful information to the tax authorities. We would like to again reiterate that as an industry we are very supportive of the objectives of the proposal to fight VAT fraud but that we are simply highlighting that the adopted proposal is not in our view a proportionate and most effective way to collect this information.

Therefore, we are disappointed to see that the ECOFIN has adopted the proposal without the modifications needed by the industry.

We now call upon the Member States and the Commission to closely involve the payments industry in the design of the details of the reporting framework. A constructive dialogue going forward is crucial to make sure that we build a reporting system that delivers the needed information to authorities but at the same time preserves the established way of functioning of the payments industry and does not create undue burden. We request that a joint group composed of Commission, Member State and industry expert is established with a view to achieve this.