One Market, Twenty-Seven VAT Systems and Counting: Europe Simplifies Everything but Its Biggest Tax

In this Column, the author argues that VAT fragmentation remains a major obstacle to the EU single market, particularly for SMEs, which face high compliance costs from dealing with different VAT rules, registrations and digital reporting systems across Member States. She calls for much deeper VAT harmonization, ultimately proposing one EU VAT system with a single VAT number, common rules and administration, and a unified tax court, especially as the EU prepares for further enlargement.