With the long announced reform, the EU Commission wants to facilitate cross-border (online) trade of EU companies with private customers (B2C). Because at the moment the situation is rather complicated for traders and vintners, for example: A company based in Germany, for example, which sells and delivers goods online or by catalogue to private customers based in another EU country, must in principle collect the VAT of the country of destination, declare it in that country and pay it. This also applies to wine. A winegrower or wine merchant with private customers in other EU countries must therefore account for the VAT with possibly up to 26 different tax offices in several languages. The additional effort involved is considerable - according to the EU Commission, this results in costs averaging 8,000 euros per year per country. Clearly, this has so far deterred many shops and wineries from cross-border end-customer trade.
