Malta VAT Grouping introduced

John Huber & associates

In the budget speech for 2018, the Minister of Finance has announced that for the first time, Malta will introduce rules which will permit two or more persons to be treated as a single person for VAT purposes.  Such persons, while legally independent from each other, would be closely linked to one another by financial, economic and organizational links.  In the said Budget speech, it was announced that this possibility will for the time being be available only to entities engaged in the financial services and gaming sectors.  The aim of this is to encourage sustainable growth in such important sectors of the Maltese economy.

By means of a new Legal Notice entitled Value Added Tax (Regulation as a Single Taxable Person) Regulations, 2018 published by the Government of Malta published LN 162 of 2018 on the 22^nd May 2018, this Legal Notice will allow separate persons, which are connected together by specific criteria to be grouped together as a single taxable person for VAT purposes.   VAT grouping is limited to persons which are operating in the financial services and gaming industries. These regulations came into force on 1st June 2018.