In the Dec. 19-20 editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

Bulgaria made several changes to its value-added tax law that will take effect Jan. 1, including implementing the European Union’s “quick fixes” reform, amendments to VATs for supply of goods and changes to VAT registration, according to a Dec. 16 KPMG alert. Along with the quick fixes (see 1912120015), which were approved by the EU earlier this year and are aimed at simplifying trade between member states, Bulgaria will extend the “notion” of “supply of goods” to cover “the transfer of any right to dispose with goods as owner.” In these cases, “no VAT taxable supply will be deemed to take place upon construction … of state or municipal-infrastructure,” KPMG said, and the supplier should “deduct input VAT on the incurred expenses related to the infrastructure under the general rules of the law.” In another change, foreign people or companies not established in Bulgaria “and performing domestic taxable supplies” will have to register for VAT purposes prior to “performing their first taxable supply, irrespective of the taxable turnover generated,” the alert said.

Poland recently made several changes to its value-added tax filing rules, expanding the scope of data that requires reporting, according to a Dec. 17 post from KPMG. The changes, which take effect in July, will require companies to report data about “special sales documents, about special goods or services sold, if there were special sales procedures (including electronic or distance sales), about special purchase documents and about special purchase procedures,” KPMG said.

The European Union’s Directorate General for Taxation and Customs Union recently posted version 5.1 of the European Customs Data Model to its website, it said in a Dec. 16 press release. The new version includes recent changes for goods subject to antidumping or countervailing duties that are transported to artificial islands, fixed or floating installations directly from outside the EU, the release said.

In recent editions of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted:

European Union leaders may delight in the long-sought clarity brought by the United Kingdom’s decisive re-election of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but more Brexit uncertainty may be on the horizon as they prepare to hammer out final details with the U.K. over the coming year on what Brexit will actually look like in the long term.

The Czech Republic is not expected to introduce a European Union-directive to implement “quick fixes” measures for value added taxes by the Jan. 1 deadline, KPMG said in a Dec. 11 post. The VAT quick fixes, approved by the EU earlier this year, are aimed at simplifying international trade, specifically across EU member states. While the quick fixes will take effect Jan. 1, the Czech Republic will likely delay their implementation because the country’s Chamber of Deputies has not yet discussed the proposal, the post said. This will likely create problems with Czech VAT-payers’ involvement in “intra-Community supply and acquisition of goods,” KPMG said. Specifically, issues may arise in situations where Czech VAT-payers withdraw goods from EU suppliers’ consignment warehouses in the Czech Republic and when Czech entities own inventories in a consignment warehouse in another EU member state, the post said.

The European Commission will double the tariffs on tableware from more than 30 companies in China that were found to have helped other Chinese companies avoid the existing antidumping duties on tableware, it said in a news release. “The investigation has confirmed that Chinese companies are evading anti-dumping duties of around 36% by channelling their ceramic exports through other companies that were subject to lower anti-dumping duties of around 18%,” it said. As a result, those companies will also be subject to the higher duty rate. The new rate will apply from March 21, 2019, and the EC will collect about €15 million ($16.7 million equivalent) in retroactive duties, it said. “This is the Commission’s largest anti-circumvention investigation to date,” the EC said. “It involved very significant resources, with 20 Commission investigators carrying out on spot verifications at 50 Chinese companies.”

Large European companies are increasingly side-stepping U.S.-China trade war tariffs by reorganizing supply chains, while smaller companies are finding creative ways to dodge tariffs or simply eat the costs, according to a Dec. 9 report from the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China. The fact that European companies have “negated” the effects of trade war tariffs “only serves to highlight the futility of bilateral tariffs in a global marketplace,” said Joerg Wuttke, president of the Chamber. “Repetitive swings of the tariff hammer have proven anything but strategic.”

In the Dec. 11 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union the following trade-related notices were posted: