The key amendments being outlined as follows:

•    The definition of a “legal person” pursuant to Section 2 has been amended to include, apart from limited companies and partnerships, clubs, associations, organisations and any other associations of persons, regardless of whether they have been established or not in accordance with the provisions of any law or regulation.

•    New Section 11E has been added into the Law to extend the method of reverse charge to cover the following goods for which the recipient, rather than the supplier, should account for VAT: mobile phones; integrated circuit mechanisms, such as microprocessors, before incorporation into other end products; and game consoles, PC tablets and laptops.

•    Section 45, which relates to the penalties imposed, has been amended as follows:

–   The penalty imposed for late submission of tax returns has increased from €51 to €100.

–   Failure to proceed to a reverse charge in accordance with Sections 11, 11A, 11B, 11C, 11D, 11E and 12A of the Law incurs a penalty of €200 per tax period irrespective of the number of transactions in relation to which the taxpayer has failed to proceed to the reverse charge in every tax period. Nonetheless, the total penalty may not exceed €4,000.

•    Other amendments include, amongst others, the replacement of “taxable person” with “any person” in Section 11B, the addition of Section 20(5A) which obligates taxpayers to comply with the timely submission of their income tax returns and provides that, should a taxpayer submit an application for VAT refund, the credit balance will not be refunded until the taxpayer submits all pending income tax returns. Finally, Section 52A has been amended to include a 60 days’ timeframe to submit an objection to the Commissioner of Taxation form the date of notification of the relevant decision to the person concerned.