The 2020 IOTA Forum on Combating VAT Fraud took place 25th-26th November, where more than 120 participants gathered from 35 IOTA Member Countries in the cyberspace. This year’s Forum, which gathers once each year during its two-year mandate, focused on two main topics: new VAT fraud trends and future risks as consequence of Covid-19.
The main aim of IOTA’s Forum on Combating VAT Fraud is to share knowledge and experiences between IOTA member tax administrations to identify fraud and exchange best practices. This is done by raising awareness of new types of emerging fraud and by building up a network of officials specialising in VAT Frauds. The Forum brings together VAT fraud experts of IOTA member Tax Administrations from both EU and non-EU countries to discuss strategies and practical application of working methods and tools developed to effectively tackle VAT fraud.
The two-day Forum offered four plenary sessions, with 12 presentations in total. These were:
- Plenary Session 1: IOTA Project “How to detect, prevent and combat new VAT fraud schemes facilitated by the digital platforms in selling goods”
The Project was identified by the IOTA Steering Group on Combating VAT fraud and set up in June 2019. The presentation gave an overview of the draft report which intends to be a sort of a handbook for tax administrations’ operators. The update on the Project was presented by the Subgroup’s coordinator, Ms. Vanessa Bianchini from Italian Revenue Agency.
- Plenary Session 2: New VAT fraud trends
- Plenary Session 3: Update from International Organisations, including the OECD, the Europol and the European Commission’s TAXUD and OLAF
- Plenary Session 4: Future risks as a consequence of the Covid-19 and new auditing and controlling activities in the VAT anti-fraud strategy
Each Plenary Session was followed by a lively Q&A discussion where participants had the chance to ask follow-up questions from the presenters. After the Discussion Group sessions on the second day, the Forum ended by a Panel Debate, where Chairpersons of Discussions Groups, Steering Group Members as well as Members of the IOTA Secretariat spoke about the mains outcomes of the Group Discussions as well as their personal takeaways of the Forum. The Panel Debate was also an occasion to discuss future Forum activities. A poll questions about the priorities of the (draft) Forum’s 2021-2022 Mandate was also addressed to the Forum’s participants.
The full presentations, Group Discussion questions and notes, poll results as well as the full recorded video footage of the event can be accessed by IOTA Members on the event page.