CHANGES IN VAT LEGAL REGULATION IN EU COUNTRIES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 virus pandemic that originated in China challenged not only the entire population of the world, but also severely affected businesses. After the introduction of strict restrictions throughout the European Union, the main priority and goal became to control not only the spread of the pandemic, but also the economic consequences that arose from the introduction of the quarantine and limiting the economic activities of the population, the provision of public and administrative services, the movement of the population and measures ensuring social distance. During this period, states made changes in their tax systems. As an important measure to optimize the tax structure, the policy of reducing VAT rates was applied, which was supposed to help reduce the economic effects of the pandemic, but at the same time help businesses survive the period of restrictions. Since various crises in the world are increasing in the recent period, therefore the effectiveness of the application of crisis management measures, their positive and negative effects must be analyzed both in the studies of the government and scientists. It is noticeable that in most cases, generalized studies of changes in the tax system are carried out, but individual tax changes and their impact on government revenue or business are rarely analyzed. The main purpose of this article is to summarize and systematize the changes that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of VAT taxation.