New European Approach to Combat VAT Fraud?

Abstract

The Member States of the European Union (EU) are missing billions of Euros each year as a result of cross-border VAT fraud. After its introduction, the current VAT system appeared to contain flaws and proved to be vulnerable to fraud. Tackling VAT fraud since then has become serious business within the EU. Despite the fact that there seems to come no end to new measures to combat fraud, so far though those measures seem not to be very effective. In June 2013, the European ministers again agreed on some (temporary) measures to combat fraud. Do these new measures make sense? And will they lead to an effective European approach to VAT fraud?