- The Public Prosecution Service (OM) is demanding 15 months in prison for three suspects from the Rotterdam region.
- The suspects are accused of evading import VAT worth 16 million euros between 2017 and 2018.
- The fraud was made possible through the import of 60 million euros worth of Chinese Amazon products.
- The suspects used a transfer of ownership of goods to take advantage of the reverse charge mechanism.
- The import VAT that should have been paid by individual Chinese sellers was unlawfully shifted to entities in Poland and Hungary, without any VAT being paid in the EU.
- This allowed a wave of consumer goods to enter the European market without paying import VAT.
- By evading import VAT, Chinese sellers can offer much lower prices to European consumers shopping online through platforms like Amazon, Ebay, and Alibaba.
- The Customs and the FIOD (Fiscal Information and Investigation Service) uncovered the fraud.
- The court will announce its verdict on November 8 or later.
Source: taxlive.nl
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
