On October 11, ALLVAT and the Dutch Chamber of Commerce The Hague organize a VAT seminar.  The seminar is in Dutch. If you are interested in a VAT training in English contact me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

IVA (the International VAT Association) signals that perhaps tomorrow the UK will block postponement of the deadline for 2009 VAT refunds after all. Strange since last week the ECON committee agreed unanimous that the proposal should be implemented. Furthermore HMRC advise UK tax payers to wait with the refund requests in the o.a. the Netherlands until all problems are solved. A blockade by the UK will certainly put the UK tax payers in a worse position.

Tomorrow the European Parliament will vote for the extension of the deadline to March 2011. If they don't accept the proposal the deadline for the refund requests in relation to 2009 ends September 30, this month.

The deadline for the 8th Directive VAT refunds 2009 is moved to 2011.

At the end of this month the official deadline for refund requests in relation to the foreign VAT 2009 ends. As a result of the problems with the electronic refund portals the European Commission proposed with a Directive to postpone the deadline for the 2009 claims to end of March 2011. See earlier posts to on this website. Last week there was a meeting of ECON as a preparation for the decision that is expected on September 22 by the European Parliament on this subject. ECON decided unanimous (35 votes in favor) that the proposal from the Commission must be followed. There was only a small amendment to the original proposal.

More and more the media signals companies that do not survive the problems caused by the new VAT refund mechanism per 2010. Here is a recent article about UK logistic companies facing huge problems with refunds in the Netherlands. For months there have been problems with the refund portals between the UK and the Netherlands. HMRC therefore advise on their website taxpayers not to file refund requests in the Netherlands until the problems are solved. The article mentions the Dutch authorities apparantly were not aware of any problems.