13 Feb 2020

Amendments to RITI: VAT Regime for Intra-Community Transactions

What is the RITI?

The RITI - VAT Regime for Intra-community Transactions, approved by Decree-Law 290/92 of December 28 and republished by Decree-Law 102/2008 of June 20, brings together in a single law most of the rules governing value added tax on intra-community transactions (Intra-community VAT).

Here are defined the rules on the treatment of intra-community transactions of goods, both those relating to incidence, exemptions and taxable value, as well as those relating to the obligations of taxpayers, namely settlement and payment obligations, as well as ancillary obligations.

What changes were made to RITI?

The Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/1912 of 4 December 2018 introduced some changes regarding the means of proof of the dispatch or transport of goods for the purpose of applying VAT exemption in intra-Community transactions [Article 14 of the VAT Regime for Intra-Community Transactions (RITI)].

The dispatch or transport of goods from one Member State’s (MS) territory to another MS is one of the substantive conditions for the application of the aforementioned exemption, and is presumed fulfilled when the following conditions are met:

When goods are dispatched or transported by the vendor or by a third party acting on behalf of the vendor, the vendor must be in possession of at least two items of non-contradictory evidence (documents related to the dispatch or transport of the goods, such as a signed CMR consignment note, a bill of lading, an air freight invoice or an invoice issued by the carrier); or one of the aforementioned items of evidence and another item of evidence, such as an insurance policy with regard to the dispatch or transport of the goods, bank documents proving payment for the dispatch or transport of the goods, official documents issued by a public authority, such as a notary, confirming the arrival of the goods in the Member State of destination or a receipt issued by a warehouse keeper in the Member State of destination, confirming the storage of the goods in that Member State;
When the goods are dispatched or transported by the acquirer or by a third party acting on behalf of the acquirer, in addition to the evidence mentioned in the previous paragraph, the vendor must be in possession of a written declaration by the acquirer indicating that the goods were dispatched or transported by the acquirer, or by a third party acting on behalf of the acquirer, and mentioning the Member State to which the goods are being sent and the date of issue, the acquirer’s name and address, the quantity and nature of the goods, and the date and place of arrival of the goods; and, additionally, in the case of the supply of means of transport, the identification number of the means of transport; and the identification of the individual accepting the goods on behalf of the acquirer (said declaration must be delivered to the vendor by the tenth day of the month following that in which the goods were made available to the acquirer).

The necessary evidence must be issued by two parties who are independent not only of each other, but also of the vendor and the acquirer, in order to be admissible as means of proof of transport.

This presumption that the goods were dispatched or transported can be rebutted by the Tax and Customs Authority (AT) if it has information that calls the veracity of the evidence presented into question. In such cases, the taxable person must demonstrate that the conditions for applying the exemption provided for in article 14 of the RITI have been met.

This Regulation came into force on 1 January 2020, without any need for transposition into domestic law.