eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

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Abstract This thesis presents an analysis of the unification or rather harmonization potential of European requirements concerning documentary evidences. These evidences are necessary to exempt intra-Community supplies from value-added tax (VAT). The analysis concerns not only the concrete differences in the national requirements but also the fulfillment of European and entrepreneurial conditions and the existence of potential best solutions. The results of the analysis are not only interesting for entrepreneurs but also for researches. The former ones benefit from this thesis as an overview of the differences is provided and along coming difficulties as additional efforts are studied. For the latter group this thesis contributes to research in general as no European-wide comparison is available and in particular as internationalization decisions are influenced or even affected by the design of documentary evidences in the respective EU Member States. Hence, the review of literature, the VAT Directive, Council Directives and decisions of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) provide a theoretical basis that shows the need for documentary evidences, the reason for the national differences and their potential design. Furthermore, this basis is used to establish a catalogue of criteria that includes the EU as the initiator of the requirements and the entrepreneur as the person responsible for fulfilling these requirements in order to be able to compare and analyze the national differences. The study of different national law texts and a survey aiming on the collection of further national requirements led to the comparison and analysis of 16 Member States. Hence, it was possible to conclude that the differences in the requirements on documentary evidences are partly striking but that a common requirement basis would be possible. This was also supported by the facts that none of the countries fulfills both the European and the entrepreneurial requirements and that no country provides a best solution. Therefore, a harmonization proposal is provided that takes also the national wish for sovereignty into account. This study is restricted by certain limitations concerning formal requirements, facilitating definitions, quality of data and ignorance of further factors. Anyhow, the results that were drawn are valid and important in the limits of this thesis. They do not only indicate that a basic harmonization of requirements on documentary evidences would be advantageous but also that further research potential is available and necessary. Keywords: Documentary evidences, European Union, Value-added tax (VAT), intra-Community supply, harmonization

Community supply, harmonization