The main objective of the OSS procedure is explicitly to provide taxable persons with a solution that is as lean and unbureaucratic as possible. However, according to information from DATEV, this simplification will not be available in the foreseeable future, at least not for existing registrations. Corrections to supplies and services that were made prior to a taxable person’s use of the OSS procedure should only be taken into account in the procedure where they have been declared initially. In practice, however, this would involve a disproportionately high effort.

In sec. 2.2 para. 2 sentence 7 of the German VAT Circular (UStAE), the Federal Ministry of Finance (BMF) has so far assumed that a member of a supervisory board performs his or her activities on a self-employed basis. In its latest letter dated July 8, 2021, the BMF has now changed its view. In doing so it has adopted the latest case law of the ECJ and BFH. Accordingly, a supervisory board member is now not considered to be self-employed if he or she receives a fixed remuneration or a remuneration whose variable component does not reach ten percent of the total remuneration. These principles also apply to members of other supervisory bodies, but not to members of management bodies. The new regulation is to be applied to all open cases. However, the Ministry has granted a transitional phase until December 31, 2021.

The German legislator has implemented the EU regulation on the VAT exemption of the management of special investment funds in sec. 4 no. 8 lit. h of the German VAT Act. A problem that repeatedly arises in practice is whether the specific supply of services, by its nature, still qualifies as “management” of special investment funds within the meaning of the legal provision. In a recent case decided by the ECJ, it was precisely this delimitation that was in question. In its decision, the ECJ added an important detail to the principles already decided. Even if the supplier does not undertake a task in its entirety, the supply can still be VAT exempt.