Intra-Community Vat

SPAIN. Differences between Call of stock and Consignment Stock.

Call Off stock.

In this case the goods are sent from your home country to a warehouse or client’s storage facility in another EU country. Title of the goods still remains with the seller. If a customer has control of the storage, is aware of stock movements and may take stock at will, then if is categorized as Call Off stock and does not generally require the seller to VAT register in the foreign country as a non-resident trader.

For European VAT purposes, any eventual sale it is treated as an intra-community VAT supply. This means the sale is recorded under the seller’s domestic  VAT number and return. The customer only has to register the sale as an acquisition in its local VAT return. Reporting under Intrastat and EC Sales Listing may still be required.

Consignment stock.

In this case the goods are sent:

To the seller’s warehouse but under seller’s control, with his prior approval for any acquisition fron the customer.

The goods are sent for their sale to multiple potential customers.

This has a different treatment of EU VAT purposes than Call Off stock. The movement of goods to the warehouse is treated as a supply. This means the Seller has to VAT register itself in the country of destination. The movement is treated as a self-sale (acquisition). Intrastat reporting will be required at this point, too. But when the goods are then sold to the customer, no local VAT is charged.

Administrative enquiry to prevent VAT cross-border frauds

Carrying out an administrative enquiry is often necessary to combat VAT fraud in particular when the taxable person is not established in the Member States where the tax is due. To ensure the proper enforcement of VAT and to avoid duplication of work and administrative burden of tax authorities and business, where at least two Member States consider that an administrative enquiry into the amounts declared by a taxable person not established on their territory but taxable therein is necessary, the Member State where the taxable person is established should undertake the enquiry unless it is able to provide the information requested. According to the Council Regulation (EU) 2018/1541, the requiring Member States should stand ready to assist the Member State of establishment by taking part actively in the enquiry. As the officials of the requesting Member States might have better knowledge of the facts and circumstances of the case and where the requested Member State has not required officials from the requesting Member States the officials of the latter should be able to be present during the administrative enquiry in so far as conditions under national law of the requested Member State for such a presence are met. In this occasion the officials of the requesting Member States should have access to the same premises and documents as the officials of the requested Member State through their intermediation.

For the purpose of ensuring the effective and efficient monitoring of VAT on cross-border transactions, Regulation (EU) No 904/2010 provides for the presence of officials in administrative offices and during administrative enquiries in other Member States. In order to strengthen the capacity of tax authorities to check cross-border supplies, there should be administrative enquiries carried out jointly enabling officials from two or more Member States to form a single team and actively take part in an administrative enquiry carried out jointly.