VAT and E-Commerce: Digital Reporting, E-Invoicing, and Fraud Prevention in Online Marketplaces (Benchmarking the EU ViDA Reforms)

E-commerce increases VAT compliance risks through high-volume, low-value transactions, fragmented cross-border reporting, and platform-enabled business models that complicate identification of the taxable person and the place of supply. The European Union’s VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) package, adopted on 11 March 2025, introduces a harmonised architecture for e-invoicing-based digital reporting requirements for intra-EU B2B supplies by 2030, expands “single VAT registration” through One-Stop Shop mechanisms, and strengthens platform-related VAT rules supported by enhanced administrative cooperation. This study develops an applied policy-and-operations framework for tax administrations and online marketplaces to reduce VAT fraud and unintentional error. Using legal-institutional analysis of ViDA and standards-based assessment of EN 16931, the paper proposes (i) (i) transaction-level reporting aligned with interoperable invoice semantics, (ii) platform governance and liability controls informed by OECD guidance, and (iii) analytics-enabled risk scoring integrated into enforcement workflows. Outputs include an end-to-end control architecture (Figure 1) and a fraud-risk control matrix with practical KPIs (Table 1), benchmarked against ViDA timelines and the VAT gap evidence base. The findings support a design principle: shortening reporting latency and standardising invoice data improves detectability and reduces opportunities for evasion when paired with data-quality controls and operational enforcement capacity.