Upon proposal of the Finance Cabinet, the Council of Ministers has approved a draft bill that reinstates the issuance of an advance invoice in B2B situations; this causes the VAT to become due in the hands of the supplier, allowing at the same time input VAT deduction in the hands of the business customer.
The new VAT point rules that came into force in 2013 were subject to many objections by businesses because of their complexity.
In answer to these objections, the Belgian VAT authorities had provided for several transitional measures that were still applicable to date whereby the actual changes were never effectively implemented by (most) businesses. Recently, their entry into force was postponed again indefinitely.
After a thorough evaluation, the new draft act is now ready and roughly restores the VAT point rules as they applied before 2013 in the B2B context. Basically, it reinstates that in domestic B2B situations the issuance of an advance invoice causes the VAT to become due in the hands of the supplier, allowing at the same time input VAT deduction in the hands of the business customer. For B2C invoices, nothing changes. The VAT charged on B2C invoices remains due on cash receipts. In B2G situations, some improvements have been made to allow businesses to account for the VAT due on cash receipts as well.
The new legislation will come into force on 1 January 2016.
