Malta warned not to include registration tax in VAT on cars

The European Commission has formally requested Austria, Malta and Finland to change their legislation as regards the inclusion of car registration tax within the amount on which VAT is levied on the sale of road vehicles.

“The registration tax should not be included in the taxable amount of VAT,” the European Commission said in a statement.The requests take the form of a reasoned opinion (the second step of the infringement procedure).

If the relevant national legislations are not amended within two months in order to comply with the respective reasoned opinions, the Commission may decide to refer the matters to the European Court of Justice.

The European Commission also warned Malta and three other member states in another ‘reasoned opinion’ over their failure to implement in national law the Fifth Motor Insurance Directive by the agreed date of June 11, 2007. The directive updates and improves the EU legal framework for motor insurance by making it easier to change insurer and by upgrading the protection of victims.

“In the absence of adequate implementation of the directive, road traffic accident victims as well as policyholders in the member states concerned will not be able to benefit from their new rights,” the Commission pointed out.

The warning was also issued against Greece, the Czech Republic and Belgium.

In a third case, Malta, along with another 10 member states, received a reasoned opinion from the Commission calling it to fully implement EU rules prohibiting discrimination in employment and occupation on the grounds of religion and belief, age, disability and sexual orientation. The countries concerned the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Netherlands, Finland and Sweden.

The Employment Equality Directive was agreed in 2000 with a deadline for implementation into national law of December 2003."A lot has already been done by Member States to ensure that people have a right to be treated equally in employment. But in some cases legislation still needs to be improved if those rights are to be put into practice," the Commission said.