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Booking.com and VAT: here are the news introduced since May

Booking.com and VAT: here are the news introduced since May

From 1 May 2023, Booking.com will introduce some new features regarding the taxation of its fees.

These new features will be used to adapt the Booking services to the European legislation, which provides for the payment of VAT on the Booking fees for structures that do not have VAT.

The current situation

Currently Booking.com is obliged, as a Dutch company, to apply the Reverse Charge to its commissions for business structures registered in Italy on its platform.

How does Reverse Charge work?

Reverse Charge (or reverse charge) should be applied to B2B reports and involves the issue of invoices without VAT, because out of range. The invoice is then supplemented with VAT at the applicable rate (in this case 22%) compared to the invoiced transaction and this is finally recorded in the purchase and sales register.

The “external” Reverse Charge is applicable to all billing operations of services provided by foreign companies based in the European Union, not only to tourist services to accommodation facilities.

What is the problem with Booking.com?

On the platform it is possible to be registered as hotels even without having a VAT number.

In this case, if the Reverse Charge is also wrongly applied to the B2C relationships of Booking, the non entrepreneurial structure being not a subject VAT, cannot pay VAT and therefore in Italy the amount of VAT on Booking fees is not paid in the case of non entrepreneurial structures.

This has obviously created many problems and Booking.com has been criticized for not having contained this problem immediately.

The news of May

So what happens to Booking.com from 1st May 2023?

In order to comply with European Union legislation, Booking.com will apply VAT to its fees when it invoices to structures without VAT or with a VAT number not valid for transactions in the EU of Reverse Charge.

Surely it will still be possible to rent even if you do not have a VAT number, but the VAT will still be applied by Booking.com to its invoice fees, adjusted to the Italian rate (then 22%) and will be paid to the Revenue Agency by Booking.

All this does not affect, instead, the accommodation with VAT, since for them the Reverse Charge is still required.

What are the effects we expect from this change?

One of the possible consequences of this change by Booking.com is an increase, by the hosts, of the rates of their rentals, to try to cover the higher cost of VAT on Booking fees.

How this will affect the choice of the end user for your stay is still to be seen, but you can imagine that for some accommodation it will become more difficult to be attractive than competitors.

Meanwhile, the word to you: what do you think about this choice of Booking.com? What do you expect from this situation?

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And as always… Good Revenue!

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