MADRID – The European Commission referred Spain to the EU’s top court on Wednesday for failing to implement two VAT-related laws that would ease the fiscal burden of small and medium-sized businesses (SME) in the country.
After multiple ultimatums, Brussels will now ask the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) to impose financial sanctions on Spain, the only EU country that has failed to implement the directives into domestic law, according to a Commission statement.
One of the directives – meant to be implemented by 31 December 2o24 – allows EU capitals to set an annual turnover threshold of up to €85,000. Below this level, self-employed persons and SMEs would be exempt from charging, accounting for, and declaring Value Added Tax (VAT). Over 770,000 workers could benefit from this overhaul, according to an estimate by the National Federation of Associations of Entrepreneurs and Self-Employed Workers (ATA).
The EU’s fourth-largest economy had indicated “it…
