An analysis of the terms ‘supply of goods’ and ‘supply of services’, and of ‘taxable person’ and ‘economic activity’, shows that those terms, which define taxable transactions under the Sixth VAT Directive, are all objective in character and apply regardless of the aims and results of the transactions concerned.

establish the requirement that financial institutions, and any other entities subject to obligations relating to the prevention of money laundering, urgently communicate all useful information to the competent public authorities when there is reason to suspect that certain funds might be channelled into terrorist activities or, more generally, to terrorist networks; the concept of 'suspect' should be rigorously defined, it should not be possible for criminal-law provisions relating, for example, to money laundering and terrorist activity to be used to prosecute other types of crime and such provisions ought therefore to accord with the ...[+++]principles in the Corpus Juris , and the definition of the concept of 'suspect' should be such as to meet the stated objective and be proportionate;

The proposed Regulation would ensure consistent interpretation of VAT law relevant to, amongst other things the place of supply, and therefore taxation, of various types of services; specific goods and services which should be exempt from VAT; the amount that should be considered the "taxable amount" for VAT purposes; the definition of electronically supplied services; and the accounting details for the special simplified arrangements for the application of VAT by non-EU suppliers of electronic services (see IP/02/673).

Given the concept of the freedom to provide services as set out in the Insurance Directives, cross-border insurance activities carried on via electronic commerce (e.g. the Internet) are subject to the provisions of the Insurance Directives relating to the freedom to provide services.

The concepts of importation and exportation in intra-Community trade would thus no longer exist and the crossing of a frontier would cease to be the event giving rise to a tax obligation: - 5 - (a) For individuals, this would mean freedom to purchase goods in the Member State of their choice (with those goods being taxed according to the conditions applicable in that Member State) and to use them without restriction in their Member State of residence; as a result, travellers' allowances would have to be scrapped (cf. point III). However, in order to limit during the transitional period the main risks of distortion of competition arising ...[+++] from the differences in VAT rates, the rate applied would be that of the country of destination for: - purchases of new private vehicles (cars and motorcycles), which would be taxed in the country of registration; - purchases from companies specializing in mail-order sales, which would be taxed in the country of destination; (b) For transactions between taxable persons (generally speaking, firms), the transitional arrangements would take the following form: - delivery of goods to another Community country would be exempt from VAT; - purchase of goods in the country of destination would be subject to VAT and the tax would be payable by the purchaser.

These proposals, which will have to take account of the need to modernize the existing provisions, will relate to: . determination of the physical scope of the tax, including the precise definition of taxable transactions (uniform definition of the supply of goods, the concept of the supply of services, the fact that the supplies are made for consideration, etc.); the precise determination of the territorial scope of the tax will be looked into in phase three; . definition of the concept of the taxable person for VAT purposes (which involves reviewing the VAT status of public bodies, the consequences of treatment as a non-taxable person, etc.); . determination of the taxable amount for taxable transactions; . exemptions: maint ...[+++]enance or abolition and, in any event, harmonization of exemptions, consequences for the right to deduct, etc.; . the right to deduct: conditions giving rise to and governing exercise of the right to deduct, procedures, harmonization of the non-deductibility of certain items of expenditure, deductible proportion (general proportion, actual application), i.e. the ratio of deductible transactions to non-deductible transactions (because exempt or outside the scope of the tax).