Tax Amendment Act – Vouchers – Directive
[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Steueränderungsgesetz: Gutschein-Richtlinie” alignment=”left” margin_design_tab_text=””][/ultimate_heading]
According to a tax amendment law
the European “Voucher Directive”, which has already been widely applied, is to be transposed into national law. Accordingly, the following applies to the sales tax treatment:
The previously used terms “goods or non-cash voucher” and “value voucher” are replaced by the terms “single-purpose voucher” and “multi-purpose voucher”, respectively.
Vouchers,
where both the place of supply or other service and the tax rate are fixed are referred to as single-purpose vouchers. Since all the information required for VAT purposes is already available when the voucher is issued, taxation takes place at the time the voucher is issued. Output (or transfer) of the voucher, i.e., the sales tax has already been paid at the Sale of the single-purpose voucher by the company (trader, service provider) at the tax rate to be deducted from the voucher value applicable to the goods or services designated in the voucher. When the single-purpose voucher is redeemed, only any difference that may still be payable is then subject to sales tax.
In the case of multi-purpose vouchers, no specific service is described; rather, they can be used like a means of payment; neither their issue nor their transfer initially has any effect on VAT. The taxation shall not take place until the delivery or the provision of the other service for which the multi-purpose voucher is accepted has actually taken place. For the determination of the basis of assessment in the case of multi-purpose vouchers, the consideration received upon issuance of the voucher is to be taken as a basis, but without the sales tax included therein.
Can this be done at output
of the multipurpose voucher cannot be determined, the monetary value printed on the voucher is to be used as a basis; in the example(see Infobrief 09/2018, page 3), the basis of assessment would then be 42.02 euros (50 euros less 19% VAT).
(Further comments & information on this can be found in our information letter 09/2018 under the item 4.)
