Effective January 1, 2023, new tax reporting rules have been introduced for operators of digital platforms such as Airbnb, Uber and Marktplaats. From now on, they will have to share information about their sellers and service providers with the tax service. The question is whether the tax authorities have enough resources to process all this data.
EU Directive DAC7
Discussing government plans for 2023 to combat tax evasion, we have already wrote on the implementation in Dutch law of the provisions of the EU Directive DAC7. Its purpose is to prevent digital platforms from gaining a competitive advantage over traditional companies. Digital platforms gain this advantage by not reporting the income of their merchants and service providers.
Online platform operators will be required to collect, verify and submit to the tax authorities information about sellers and transactions made on a particular platform, no later than January 31 of the next year. The collected information will then be automatically transferred to other countries, resulting in an automatic exchange of data on digital companies between the tax authorities of EU member states.
DAC7 provisions apply to online platform operators:
- lease of real estate (residential and commercial) in an EU Member State;
- vehicle rental;
- provision of services;
- sale of goods.
Which of the sellers / service providers is not interested in the tax?
It does not matter for the reporting obligation whether the seller uses the platform as an entrepreneur or as an individual, whether the seller makes a profit or loss. In fact, the obligation applies to all users, except for a few categories of exceptions:
- government agencies;
- companies listed on the stock exchange;
- sellers with less than 30 relevant actions during the reporting period with an equivalent value of less than 2000 euros*.
*Note: The last condition applies only when it comes to the sale of goods, and not to the provision of personal services or the rental of vehicles.
What information should digital platform operators report?
We are talking about fairly detailed information about their users: name, main address, (possibly) date of birth, VAT number, bank account BIC code (BIC-code van de bankrekening), BSN number, total income for the quarter and the number of corresponding actions.
Forecasts for implementation in practice
According to FD (Het Financieele Dagblad) experts, due to the existence of exceptions, there may be problems with setting up ICT systems. NOB tax advisors (de Nederlandse Orde van Belastingadviseurs, NOB) have doubts about compliance with GDPR data collection regulations. Digital platform operators have been waiting for more clarity on the rules, and now that they're making settings changes, there's no guarantee they won't have to do it all over again.
The representative of the international organization of financial advisers PwC asks the extent to which the tax authorities will actually use the data provided for verification: “Studies show that European tax authorities still make very limited use of information obtained under similar rules”. The question is whether it will be different for DAC7. In turn, the representatives of the Dutch tax authorities themselves note that the implementation of the innovation requires significant resources.
Publication Date: 13.01.2023
