Government adopts draft VAT amendment – same rates, tightened collection

The Council of Ministers has adopted a draft amendment to the law on taxation of goods and services, the Government Information Center (CIR) announced. The bill foresees maintenance of the current VAT rates of 5 percent, 8 percent and 23 percent until the end of 2018. “The draft amendment includes solutions that will help to curtail abuse of the tax on goods and services and will seal its collection system, which will ultimately lead to an increase in VAT revenue,” CIR stated. The rates will be kept the same because the solutions sealing the tax system will not bring results until next year and subsequent years. The bill provides for expansion of the so-called inverted load mechanism on transactions (when the buyer, not the supplier, settles VAT).