REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the operation of the arrangements established by Council Directive 2010/24/EU of 16 March 2010 concerning mutual assistance for the recovery of claims relating to taxes, duties and other measures
Date: 2020-12-18
Institutions: Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission
Subjects: EU statistics, European tax cooperation, administrative cooperation, claim, data collection, exchange of information, information system, tax authorities, tax collection, tax law

EN 

  EN 

   EUROPEAN COMMISSION  Brussels, 18.12.2020  COM(2020) 813 final  REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL on the operation of the arrangements established by Council Directive 2010/24/EU of 16 March 2010 concerning mutual assistance for the recovery of claims relating to taxes, duties and other measures {SWD(2020) 340 final}  
 
 
Introduction 

1.  Tax fairness is a key element of the recently adopted Commission Action Plan for a fair 
and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy.1 Everyone is expected to pay their 
fair share of taxes. If taxes remain unpaid, tax authorities need to take recovery actions to 
collect  the  taxes.  The  competence  of  the  tax  authorities  is  however  limited  to  their 
national territory. They cannot undertake recovery actions in other countries, although tax 
debtors  may  have  moved  to  another  country  or  may  have  assets  in  other  countries. 
Therefore, the EU has adopted legislation which allows the EU Member States to provide 
mutual  assistance  to  each  other  for  the  recovery  of  their  taxes  and  for  other  EU  claims 
defined in Article 2 of the Directive.  

The  following  example  illustrates  the  functioning  of  this  recovery  assistance:  a  person 
does not pay his tax debts in Member State A. He moves to Member State B but he also 
owns property in Member State C. In that case, the tax authorities of Member State A can 
ask  the  tax  authorities  of  Member  States  B  and  C  to  help  to  recover  the  taxes  due  to 
Member State A.  

In  this  way,  mutual  recovery  assistance  contributes  to  ensuring  equity  and  non-
discrimination  in  the  field  of  taxation:  it  helps  to  ensure  that  everyone  is  paying  their 
taxes and it helps to prevent tax fraud and budgetary losses for the Member States and for 
the EU. 

2.  This  report  presents  the  follow-up  to  Commission  Report  COM(2017)7782  of  18 
December  2017  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  the  operation  of  the 
arrangements  established  by  Council  Directive  2010/24/EU3  of  16  March  2010 
concerning mutual assistance for the recovery of claims relating to taxes, duties and other 
measures. Article 27(3) of this Directive provides that the Commission shall report every 
5 years to the European Parliament and the Council on the operation of the arrangements 
established  by  this  Directive.  The  present  report  is  the  second  report  under  this  new 
Directive. It covers the period 2017-2019. 

3. 

In  line  with  the  conclusions  of  the  previous  report,  the  following  actions  have  been 
determined: 
1) 

Improving the collection of statistical data on the use of tax recovery assistance, in 
view  of  a  more  detailed  evaluation  of  the  efficiency  and  effectiveness  of  mutual 
recovery assistance, taking account of the need to avoid or limit additional workload 
for  the  national  tax  authorities.  Special  attention  should  also  be  paid  to  the  link 
between  the  workload  of  incoming  requests  for  assistance  and  the  administrative 
resources deployed in the requested Member State; 

2)   Examining  problems  at  the  level  of  individual  Member  States  that  hamper  the 
smooth  functioning  of  mutual  recovery  assistance,  in  view  of  recommendations  or 
other actions to address these issues; 

1   Action 14 of this Action plan, 

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/2020_tax_package_tax_action_plan_en.pdf.  
2   Report  from  the  Commission  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  the  operation  of  the 
arrangements  established  by  Council  Directive  2010/24/EU  of  16  March  2010  concerning  mutual 
assistance for the recovery of claims relating to taxes, duties and other measures. 

3   Directive 2010/24/EU of 16 March 2010 concerning mutual assistance for the recovery of claims relating to 

taxes, duties and other measures, OJ L 84/1 of 31 March 2010. 

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3)  Examining  needs  and  ways  to  improve  the  functioning  of  the  recovery  assistance 

system at EU level; 

4)  Developing  the  knowledge  and  awareness  of  the  mutual  recovery  assistance 

legislation, both by national tax authorities and taxpayers; 

5)  Examining possibilities and ways to promote and facilitate recovery assistance with 

third countries, taking account of the EU’s competence and priorities. 

4.  With  regard  to  the  first  three  action  points,  further  analysis  has  been  carried  out  by 
Fiscalis  Project  Group  110,  in  which  13  Member  States4  participated.  Input  was  also 
collected  from  the  other  Member  States,  in  particular  with  regard  to  the  problematic 
issues encountered at national level. 

5.  This report presents the follow-up actions and contains a number of recommendations for 

further improvements.  

1. First action point: improving and automating the collection of statistical data 

6.  The  recovered  amounts  reported  by  the  applicant  Member  States  and  the  requested 

Member States show some differences in the period 2017-2019. 

Table 1: overview of recovered amounts (2017-2019): 

Recovered at the request of other 
Member States, before deduction of 
the own costs (reported by the 
requested Member States) 
in € 
103 536 690 
86 099 511 
93 304 732 

2017 
2018 
2019 

Recovered via requests to other 
Member States (reported by the 
applicant Member States 

in € 
159 544 517 
127 517 949 
106 391 930 

The above data indicates that during the three-year period, between EUR 283 million and 
EUR 393 million were recovered.  

The  amounts  in  the  left  and  right  columns  of  the  above  table  do  not  have  to  match 
exactly. The amounts in the left column refer to the amounts recovered before deduction 
of  the  costs  incurred  by  the  requested  Member  State  (which  would  normally  lead  to  a 
higher amount in the left column), and some debts may be paid directly to the applicant 
Member  State  (which  leads  to  a  higher  amount  in  the  right  column).  However,  the 
discrepancies  between  the  columns  is  significant,  especially  in  2017,  although  the 
differences between the reported amounts does decrease from year to year. Irrespective of 
this improvement, this raises questions about the accuracy of these statistics.  

Discrepancies  can  also  be  found  in  the  numbers  of  assistance  requests  reported  by  the 
Member  States  (see  section  1.1.  of 
the  Commission  staff  working  document 
accompanying this report for more information about the numbers of assistance requests). 

4   Member  States  represented  in  Fiscalis  Project  Group  110:  Bulgaria,  Germany,  Estonia,  Greece,  Spain, 

Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Finland. 

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7.  The  move  to  an  automated  collection  of  statistical  data  will  help  to  improve  the 
reliability  of  the  statistical  data  reported  by  the  Member  States.  It  will  also  reduce  the 
administrative burden for the Member Sates.  

8.  Moreover, an automated collection of statistics will enable the Member States to collect 
more relevant information about their actual performance in tax recovery assistance. 

The Recovery Expert Group has already discussed the possibility for Member States to 
extend  the  collection  of  statistical  data  –  in  an  automated  way  –  to  the  following 
elements: 
-  the type of replies to requests for recovery, providing an indication of the usefulness of 

the request and its chances to obtain recovery; 

-  the  number  of  situations  where  requests  are  revised  by  the  applicant  Member  State, 

following corrections, disputes, (partial) payments, etc.; 

-  the  timeliness  of  acknowledgments  of  the  receipt  of  assistance  requests  and  the 

timeliness of the first replies to assistance requests; 

-  the  number  of  requests  for  recovery  relating  to  VAT  refunds  to  be  made  by  the 
requested State (where the action requested from that State is limited to the seizure of 
the VAT refund amount concerned). 

The  Commission  expects  that  this  additional  information  will  help  to  improve  the 
evaluation  of  the  work  and  better  demonstrate  the  efforts  made  by  the  requested  and 
applicant Member States. 

9.  The  automated  collection  of  the  above  statistical  data  requires  some  further  IT-
developments. These would normally be ready in 2021, so that the automated collection 
of these statistics could be fully applied by the Member States with regard to the requests 
and replies sent from 2022. 

2.  Second action point: Improving the legislation and practice at national level  

10.  There are different situations where the recovery and the execution of recovery assistance 

requests should be improved at national level: 

1a)   Cases of no-reply, showing a clear lack of cooperation. These include cases where 
the requested authorities do not acknowledge the receipt of the assistance request or 
where they do not provide further replies to the request. 

These  situations  affect  the  mutual  trust  which  is  fundamental  in  tax  recovery 
assistance.  

1b)   Other situations of lack of cooperation, due to insufficient or unclear information 
and  communication  problems.  These  include  situations  where  the  applicant 
authorities do not provide clear information about their request (e.g. insufficient or 
no  justification  for  a  request  to  recover  an  old  claim;  lack  of  explanation  of  the 
information on which the request is based, while that information would be useful 
for the execution of the request) or where the requested authorities do not provide 

3 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
clear  information  about  the  actions  undertaken  in  the  requested  Member  State 
and/or the problems that prevent or hinder the execution of the assistance request. 

These  situations  affect  the  effectiveness  and  the  efficiency  of  the  tax  recovery 
assistance.  Unclear  requests  and  replies  cause  an  unnecessary  additional 
administrative  burden  for  the  authorities  concerned.  The  uncertainty  also  hinders 
the  applicant  Member  State’s  decisions  to  take  further  actions  (e.g.  actions 
launching  insolvency  proceedings  or  actions  to  interrupt  or  suspend  the  period  of 
limitation). 

2a)   Incorrect implementation of the Recovery Directive: situations where Directive 
2010/24  is  not  correctly  implemented  in  the  legislation  and/or  administrative 
practice  of  the  requested  Member  State  or  situations  relating  to  a  wrong 
interpretation  of  the  Directive  (see  sections  2.2.1.-2.2.4.  of  the  Commission  staff 
working document accompanying this report). 

These situations seriously hinder the proper functioning of the recovery assistance 
system.  They  create  unnecessary  confusion  that  sometimes  leads  to  further 
misinterpretation and mutual misunderstandings. 

2b)   Insufficient national legislation or practice: situations where the legal framework 
or practice in the requested Member State is not fit to provide recovery assistance to 
other Member States (see section 2.2.5. of the Commission staff working document 
accompanying this report). 

If the national legislation or practice are not sufficiently developed and adapted to 
the needs of international recovery assistance, the recovery assistance cannot work 
properly.  Such  situations  may  be  directly  or  indirectly  discriminative  and  have 
negative  consequences  for  the  tax  collection  and  the  functioning  of  the  internal 
market. 

11.  In  general,  it  can  be  concluded  that  Member  States  have  to  deploy  sufficient  human 
resources  and  IT-infrastructure to  handle the incoming requests for  recovery assistance, 
and  that  the  national  rules  and  administrative  practice  must  be  developed,  in  view  of 
providing an active and effective recovery assistance. 

12.  The  Commission  intends  to  monitor  closely  the  issues  reported.  All  Member  States 
concerned have been invited to comment and, where necessary, to present their follow-up 
actions.  The  evaluation  of  these  issues  by  the  Commission  is  ongoing,  which  may  in 
some  cases  involve  launching  infringement  procedures  in  situations  of  incorrect 
implementation of the Recovery Directive. 

3.  Third action point: improving the functioning of recovery assistance at EU level 

13.  The  Commission  report  COM(2017)778  concluded  that  improving  different  legal  and 
technical  aspects  of  the  functioning  of  the  EU  tax  recovery  assistance  system  may  be 
considered (see section 4.3. of that report). 

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14.  Some  ideas  to  improve  the  EU  framework  were  raised  by  Member  States  within  the 
context  of  the  evaluation  that  took  place  in  2017.5  Fiscalis  Project  Group  110  has 
undertaken some further analysis of a number of suggestions to improve the efficiency of 
recovery assistance arrangements. The overview below presents the main elements.  

15.  A major concern relates to the exchange of information. This could be improved, inter 

alia, by: 
–   permitting more flexibility with regard to the use of the request form for exchange of 

information; 

–   extending  the  exchange  of  information  without  request  and  rapid  access  to 

information. 

16.  In the past, recovery assistance was only provided for taxes that existed in both Member 
States  concerned.  This  mirror  approach  was  abandoned  in  2010,  when  Directive 
2010/24 extended the scope to claims relating to “all taxes and duties of any kind”. The 
mirror approach – requiring a similarity between the taxes of the applicant Member State 
and the requested Member State – was, however, maintained for the following elements: 
–   when  executing  a  request  for  recovery  or  precautionary  measures,  the  requested 
Member State must make use of its own powers and procedures applying to the same 
or, in the absence of the same, a similar tax or duty (with income taxes as a fall-back 
option) (Article 13(1) of Directive 2010/24); 

–   when  sending  requests  for  assistance,  Member  States  have  to  take  account  of  the 
requested  Member  States’  internal  division  of  competences  for  the  recovery  of  the 
specific  categories  of  taxes  for  which  recovery  assistance  is  requested.  Therefore,  a 
system  of  13  mailboxes  was  set  up,  the  use  of  which  may  be  different  from  one 
Member  State  to  another,  depending  on  the  Member  States’  internal  division  of 
competence for the specific categories of taxes; 

–   when suspension, interruption or prolongation of periods of limitation are applied, 
as  Article  19(2)  of  Directive  2010/24  takes  into  account  whether  a  corresponding 
effect is provided under the laws in both Member States. 

17.  Simplification of the above rules should be considered, at  least  on an optional  basis. 
This would facilitate a possible (optional) extension of the scope to other public claims 
for  which  no  recovery  assistance  framework  exists  at  this  moment.  Several  Member 
States have indeed repeatedly pleaded for a further extension of the scope of the recovery 
assistance to other public claims for which there is currently no other legal basis. 

18.  Attention  should  also  be  paid  to  the  ways  of  dealing  with  the  digitalisation  of 

transactions and assets, which add to the existing recovery problems, such as: 
–   problems with regard to the seizure of e-bank accounts and crypto-currencies; 
–   difficulties to recover taxes due by taxable persons established in other countries than 
the  countries  where  they  are  operating  (in  particular  in  case  of  e-commerce).  In  this 
respect, more attention should be paid to the recovery (assistance) aspects when new 
tax legislation is developed.   

19.  The Commission intends to have further discussions with the Member States in order to 
carry  out  an  in-depth  analysis  of  possibilities  and  needs  to  reinforce  and  facilitate  the 
recovery assistance framework. 

5  

See Staff working document SWD(2017)461 of 18 December 2017 accompanying the Commission report 
COM(2017)778, No. 6.3.2. 

5 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                 
20.  Any future developments should, nevertheless, take full account of the need to protect tax 
debtors’ rights. The growing number of preliminary questions to the EU Court of Justice 
confirms  that  recovery  assistance  under  Directive  2010/24  –  just  as  recovery  assistance 
under any other agreement – must respect tax debtors’ rights, in particular their right of 
defence. 

4.  Fourth  action  point:  Developing  the  knowledge  and  awareness  of  the  mutual 

recovery assistance rules  

21.  One  of  the  conclusions  of  the  Commission  evaluation  report  COM(2017)778  related  to 
the  need  to  develop  the  knowledge  and  awareness  of  the  mutual  recovery  assistance 
legislation.6  It  appears  that  problems  in  mutual  recovery  assistance  often  result  from  a 
lack  of  understanding  of  the  rules  under  Directive  2010/24.  Furthermore,  raising 
awareness is necessary not only at the level of national tax authorities but also at the level 
of the taxpayers. 

22.  At  EU  level,  some  training  events  have  already  been  organised.7  The  Commission  is 
planning  to  organise  more  regular  and  systematic  training  within  the  framework  of  the 
Fiscalis program, in order to contribute to a common understanding and awareness of the 
possibilities for recovery assistance within the EU.  

These  training  activities  also  have  to  pay  attention  to  the  growing  impact  of  case  law 
developments in the field of tax recovery and recovery assistance  

23.  Furthermore,  each  Member  State  is  expected  to  share  information  about  its  national 
legislation and practice with other Member States. This information is important for 
tax  authorities  of  other  Member  States  that  wish  to  check  the  possibilities  for  recovery 
assistance  in  other  countries.  Some  national  information  is  already  available  on  the 
common database CIRCABC. The Commission will set up a coordinated action, inviting 
the Member States to proceed with an update and extension of this national information.  

24.  Member  States  will  also  be  invited  to  raise  the  awareness  of  taxpayers  about  the 

possibilities and consequences of cross-border tax recovery assistance. 

5.   Fifth  action  point:  Examining  possibilities  and  ways  to  promote  and  facilitate 

recovery assistance with third countries 

7  

6   Report  from  the  Commission  to  the  European  Parliament  and  the  Council  on  the  operation  of  the 
arrangements  established  by  Council  Directive  2010/24/EU  of  16  March  2010  concerning  mutual 
assistance for the recovery of claims relating to taxes, duties and other measures. 
Fiscalis  workshops  on  the  use  of  the  electronic  forms  for  recovery  under  the  central  application  (12-13 
April  2018  and  19-20  April  2018)  and  a  training  workshop  for  Norwegian  tax  recovery  authorities, 
following  the  adoption  of  the  EU-Norway  agreement  on  administrative  cooperation  and  tax  recovery 
assistance in the field of VAT (25-27 September 2018). 

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25.  In  2018,  the  European  Union  signed  its  first  bilateral  agreement  on  administrative 
cooperation, combating tax fraud and recovery of claims in the field of VAT with a third 
country: the Kingdom of Norway.8 

The EU-Norway Agreement allows Member States and Norway to use the e-forms also 
for  recovery  assistance  with  regard  to  other  taxes  than  VAT.9  Several  Member  States 
have expressed their interest in using this possibility. This would be useful, in view of the 
automated  translation  of  the  standard  forms10,  which  permit  to  inform  the  persons 
concerned  in  the  official  language  of  the  requested  State.11  Norway  indicated  that  the 
evaluation of the extended use of the e-forms will be done by the end of 2020. 

26.  In  its  conclusions  of  5  December  201912,  the  Council  of  the  European  Union 
acknowledged that the EU–Norway Agreement was an important step in exchanging tax 
information with third countries. It stressed the importance of such cooperation between 
European Member States and third countries in the fight against tax fraud and invited the 
Commission  to  explore  opportunities  for  new  agreements  on  mutual  assistance 
arrangements in VAT and recovery with other third countries. 

Agreements on administrative cooperation with third countries, in particular to fight tax 
fraud  related  to  e-commerce,  are  part  of  the  initiatives  outlined  in  the  recently  adopted 
Commission Action Plan for a fair and simple taxation supporting the recovery strategy.13 

27.  Provisions  on  recovery  assistance,  maintaining  the  possibility  to  use  the  current 
framework for on-going recovery assistance with the United Kingdom, were included 
in the withdrawal agreement.14 

The  Council  of  the  European  Union  also  authorised  the  European  Commission  to  open 
negotiations for a new partnership with the United Kingdom.15 The envisaged partnership 
covers,  among  other,  administrative  cooperation  and  mutual  assistance  in  customs  and 
value  added  tax  (VAT)  matters  including  for  the  exchange  of  information  to  fight 
customs and VAT fraud, and for mutual assistance for the recovery of claims related to 
taxes and duties, as mentioned in the negotiating directives16.  

8   OJ L 195/1 of 1 August 2018. This agreement entered into force on 1 September 2018. 
9   Article 40(4) of the agreement. 
10   Notably the uniform notification form and the uniform instrument permitting enforcement. 
11   The obligation to inform the person concerned in a particular language was confirmed by the case law of 

the EU Court of Justice (case C-233/08, Kyrian, and case C-34/17, Donnellan). 

12   Point 15 of the Council conclusions 14682/19 of 5 December 2019 on the report of the European Court of 
Auditors’ Special Report No 12/2019 “E-commerce: many of the challenges of collecting VAT and customs 
duties remain to be resolved”. 
13   Action 14 of this Action plan,  

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/sites/taxation/files/2020_tax_package_tax_action_plan_en.pdf  
14   Agreement  on  the  withdrawal  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Northern  Ireland  from  the 

European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, OJ C 384I , 12.11.2019, p. 1. 

15   https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/42737/st05870-en20.pdf  
16   https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/42736/st05870-ad01re03-en20.pdf  

7 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                 
28.  Since  2019,  electronic  recovery  assistance  request  forms  (in  the  Java  format17)  are 
available for use with third countries. When these forms were initially developed, they 
were indeed designed in such a way that they can be used with other third countries. 

A cooperation with third countries may also be envisaged for the revision of the current 
EU tax recovery assistance request forms. 

29.  Finally,  the  EU  Recovery  Expert  Group  has  suggested  to  develop  an  EU  model 
Memorandum of Understanding for bilateral agreements with third countries. Based on 
sharing  best  practices,  this  model  could  be  used  by  Member  States  for  organising  their 
recovery assistance with third countries, in order to simplify the implementation of such 
agreements.  

6.  General conclusions and recommendations 

30.  The automated collection of statistical data will help to improve the accuracy of these 

statistics and to reduce the administrative burden for the Member States.  

Member  States  are  invited  to  effectively  use  the  automated  collection  of  statistical  data 
and to include the additionally collected data in their annual reports to the Commission. 

31.  Although the recovered amounts are considerable, the problems reported show that there 
are concerns/doubts about the willingness or capacity of some Member States to provide 
recovery  assistance.  Member  States  have  a  legal  obligation  to  assist  other  Member 
States  in  the  recovery  of  tax  claims  so  adequate  measures  need  to  be  taken  at  national 
level to fulfil this requirement.  

32.  An appropriate follow-up should be given to every assistance request and the processing 
time should be substantially shortened. Member States should devote  sufficient human 
resources, IT-infrastructure and IT-tools to tax recovery assistance, so as to fulfil their 
assistance  obligations  and  to  handle  the  ever-increasing  volume  of  assistance  requests. 
National rules and administrative practices need to be developed in such a way that 
tax recovery authorities can provide such assistance. 

Member States are invited to organise an internal control, in order to ensure that requests 
for assistance are effectively executed and that the requested authorities provide clear and 
timely information to the applicant authorities about the execution of assistance requests.  

Tax authorities are invited to  report situations of non-respect  of the recovery assistance 
rules to the appropriate level within the Member States and Member States are invited to 
submit  these  problems  (at  an  earlier  stage)  to  other  Member  States  and  to  the 
Commission, so that persisting problems in the relations with other Member States can be 
dealt with in a more pro-active and effective way. 

17   With  regard  to  the  central  application  e-forms  (eFCA),  it  was  noted  that  this  would  require  an  IT-
connection and support provided by the Commission and entail a financial contribution from participating 
countries, requiring an international agreement (as is the case with Norway). 

8 

 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                 
33.  The  EU  tax  recovery  assistance  framework  faces  several  challenges:  the  tools  and 
instruments  to  request  and  grant  recovery  assistance  must  be  adapted  to  the  increasing 
need for recovery assistance, the new economic and technological developments and the 
legal developments, in particular with regard to the respect of tax debtors’ rights.  

34.  The need to increase the knowledge and awareness of the EU tax recovery assistance 
framework is an important issue. Actions to increase this knowledge and awareness have 
been taken, but further action is needed.   

35.  Member States are invited to cooperate with the Commission to implement these actions, 

in a pro-active way and with a positive European spirit. 

9