Limited Third-Party Liability in EU VAT Matters

In this article, the authors explain that, although the powers of the tax authorities of the EU Member States to hold third parties liable for unpaid VAT are not unlimited, taxable persons should take the necessary precautions to prevent that, due to the absence of evidence of their diligence, they expose themselves to the risk that the tax authorities can accuse them of not having done everything that was reasonably within their power to ensure that they did not get involved in a third party’s fraud.