- VAT was designed to be simple and politically neutral, emerging as a concept after World War I and being implemented after World War II
- 175 countries around the world currently use some form of VAT, with the UK alone generating £168.9bn in VAT receipts in the 2023/24 financial year
- Two schools of thought on the invention of VAT in Europe, with one attributing it to German businessman Dr Wilhelm von Siemens in 1918 and the other to Maurice Lauré in France in 1954
- The Treaty of Rome in 1957 led to the development of a common system of taxation on goods and services in the European Economic Community (EEC)
- The EEC’s first two VAT directives in 1967 laid out a blueprint for the Community’s VAT system, with member states gradually adopting them into their national laws
- The UK adopted the EEC’s VAT system when it joined in 1973, following the region’s guidelines for a uniform basis of assessment
Source: icaew.com
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.
