Improving Efficiency to Combat VAT Frauds at the European Union Level
Improving Efficiency to Combat VAT Frauds at the European Union Level

Author(s): Nelu Dorinel Popa, Cezara Popa
Subject(s): Criminal Law, EU-Legislation
Published by: Societatea de Stiinte Juridice si Administrative
Keywords: VAT frauds; European Union; case law; European cooperation;
Summary/Abstract: The value-added tax is an indirect tax that represents both an inherent resource of the European Union budget and a resource of EU Member States budgets. Consequently, frauds against national VAT affect both the national budget and the Member States’ budget, which entail the activities for combating this type of fraud to be correlated both at national and at the Community level. Therefore, the Romanian jurisprudence provides examples in which the national judicial authorities have identified a continuous circulation, a "carousel" type, of VAT fraud, between several Member States of the European Union, which has harmed each of the budgets of the states on whose territory it has "transited" and implicitly, the Community budget. The investigation of these frauds and the criminal prosecution of the perpetrators was carried out only at the national level, in a fragmented way, but it also required the judicial cooperation of the Member States in order to support the requesting states in carrying out the investigations. However, the national authorities are missing the cross-border dimension, which requires a European Union authority to investigate such frauds, to correct the deficiencies of the current regime regarding compliance with law, based exclusively on national efforts and to increase their consistency and coordination.

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