• Iman Deschâtres
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A year ago, the US pulled the plug on de minimis. From 1 July, the EU follows.

Under Council Regulation (EU) 2026/382, the long-standing customs duty exemption for parcels under €150 disappears, replaced by a flat €3 charge applied per item, based on tariff classification rather than per parcel. Three identical t-shirts in one box, €3. A t-shirt and a watch, €6. The Commission’s own figures put the daily volume at around 12 million low-value parcels entering the bloc, the vast majority currently moving duty-free.

What’s worth noting is what this measure quietly admits: the EU doesn’t yet have a system capable of assessing full, product-specific customs duty at that volume. Rather than wait, Brussels is bridging the gap with a flat rate, explicitly framed as temporary until the EU Customs Data Hub becomes operational in 2028, at which point ordinary tariffs, calculated item by item, take over. It shows the direction of travel: the era when low-value parcels crossed borders essentially untaxed is closing.

Here is a glimpse of what caught my attention…and as you read the plethora of changes and consider the challenges they present especially to marketplaces and their sellers, keep in mind that only the right system can enable growth and open new markets without financial or reputational risk. Of course, I note that any observations and comments are solely my own opinion and view, and not intended to be the provision of advice. You should not rely on these without checking with your own tax, legal and financial advisors.

United Kingdom

Marketplaces could soon be liable for VAT on UK sellers’ own domestic sales, not just sales by overseas sellers as the rules currently require. HMRC has opened a consultation proposing exactly that: the marketplace, not the seller, would account for the VAT regardless of where the seller is based. A Minimum Platform Threshold is floated to keep smaller UK businesses out of scope, and the consultation closes 18 August. The logic is simplicity: one clear rule for who collects, rather than a split by seller location that leaves room for exactly the kind of dispute below. Marketplaces have lobbied for this change. Getting there means updating their systems. 

A UK seller was told to pay VAT a second time. Amazon had already collected it the first time, then deducted it from the seller’s payout. The seller, following Amazon’s lead, didn’t remit it again. The Tribunal disagreed. In HBS Enterprises Ltd v HMRC [2026] UKFTT 764 (TC), it upheld HMRC’s assessment, conceding only that “we appreciate that the Appellant may think this conclusion is unfair.” It is unfair: VAT paid is supposed to be VAT paid, and a seller has little practical ability to challenge a marketplace’s own tax determinations, let alone fund paying the same liability twice. As agentic commerce edges closer, deciding who is actually liable for the tax is becoming less academic by the month.

Australia

Customer status validation for foreign suppliers selling into Australia is getting clearer guidance, and with it, more certainty on when the B2B exemption applies and what is needed to keep applying it. 

The ATO’s draft ruling GSTR 2026/D1, open for comment until 24 July, will replace the decade-old GSTR 2017/1 on when a non-resident supplier is making a taxable supply to an “Australian consumer.” 

The customer location test is largely unchanged. 

What’s new is the guidance on B2B validation: specifically, what counts as acceptable evidence that a customer is actually a business. An ABN Lookup check within 7 days of onboarding a new recipient is enough to establish a reasonable belief that the customer is GST-registered and therefore out of scope. Repeating that check every 6 to 12 months maintains it. 

For platforms running this determination at scale, across thousands of B2B relationships, that’s a meaningfully more workable standard than “reasonable belief” left undefined.

Gulf Co-operation Council

The GCC is moving to close the gap that allows double or non-taxation on intra-bloc trade. Saudi Arabia has approved amendments to five articles of the GCC Unified VAT Agreement, with other Member States expected to follow: intra-GCC movement of goods, supplies to non-registered persons, a confirmed 5% minimum standard rate (Saudi Arabia sits at 15%, Bahrain at 10%), import VAT collection at first point of entry, and wider information-sharing between tax authorities. 

The honest caveat, buried in the small print: the centralised system needed to actually operate the intra-GCC rules isn’t built yet, so the amendments remain technically suspended pending implementation.

Platform Reporting

Who counts as a “Platform Operator” under DAC7 has never been straightforward. The answer is not limited to marketplaces. 

The Commission’s 24 June Tax Simplification Package recasts the Directive on Administrative Cooperation with changes that cut both ways. Small and medium platform operators and related-party sellers are carved out of reporting. But the proposal also clarifies the definition of “Platform Operator” itself, a term whose contested scope has allowed genuinely different interpretations across Member States. That clarification could pull in entities that weren’t clearly in scope before. An estate agency running its own rental-matching platform, for instance, sits alongside the traditional e-commerce marketplaces the rules were written for. 

The OECD is working in parallel on similar ground. Its consultation on the Model Reporting Rules for Digital Platforms, open until 14 August, addresses practical issues that have surfaced since the rules went live across more than 30 jurisdictions. On the table: revised thresholds for exempting small sellers of low-value and second-hand goods; clearer definitions of “Platform” and “Platform Operator”; limits on transactional reporting where a seller is itself a reporting platform operator, to avoid duplicate filings; and a new “Related Entity” concept to carve intra-group arrangements out of scope. Still under active discussion is how to handle intermediary sellers, where the entity on the platform is not the ultimate seller. That has proven the hardest to get right.

Czech Republic

B2B marketplaces are coming into scope of VAT under the deemed supplier rules from January 2027. It is a part of ViDA that has received less attention. The Czech Republic is putting it into law. Bill No. 318/26, submitted by the Ministry of Finance, transposes this alongside OSS clarifications, including the ability to report cross-border supplies of gas, electricity and cooling through the OSS system.

Liberia

Liberia introduces VAT on 1 January 2027 at a standard rate of 18%, replacing the existing GST. The registration threshold is US$20,000 in annual sales. Registration opens 1 July and runs through 31 December 2026. Businesses operating in Liberia should review their position now: the threshold is low and the registration window is already open.

Digital Services Tax

With OECD Pillar One talks still stalled, DSTs are back in the headlines despite repeated Trump tariff threats.   

An EU-wide DST as a new budget “own resource” is under consideration. The European Parliament’s Budget Committee published a briefing on the idea, with Commission estimates pointing to up to €5 billion a year from a 3% levy. It would also replace the current patchwork of national taxes with a single EU-level approach. 

Direct online sales fall outside Italy’s DST. A tax court ruled that a retailer selling through its own website is not an intermediary, as it bears the commercial risk itself. 

Tanzania, meanwhile, signalled an increase to its own DST from 2% to 3%.

Low Value Goods

The following trend keeps accelerating: low-value goods exemptions are being phased out, while new levies on small parcels emerge in their place.

Italy

Italy has suspended its own €2 mini-parcel fee for a third time, now until 1 October, via a decree approved on 22 June, explicitly to avoid stacking it on top of the EU-wide €3 charge described above (a “3+2 effect,” as trade groups put it). The uncertainty itself has a cost: businesses can’t plan logistics around a fee that keeps moving.

France

France suspended its €2 small-parcel fee on 1 July, the day the EU-wide €3 customs duty came into force. The fee, in place since 1 March, had failed to collect at scale: platforms rerouted shipments through neighbouring hubs, with direct parcel volumes entering France dropping around 90%.

United Kingdom

As part of the same package as the marketplace liability consultation above, the UK is accelerating removal of customs duty relief on low-value imports (£135 or under) by six months, to October 2028. Businesses currently relying on that relief should be reviewing their supply chains and pricing models now: October 2028 is closer than it sounds and compliance systems take time to update.

EU

The EU’s €3 flat customs duty per item on low-value parcels entered into force on 1 July 2026, as set out in the introduction.

Enforcement

Germany

Germany’s 2025 VAT special audits generated €1.69 billion in additional revenue from 65,294 audits, run by an average of 1,597 auditors, roughly €1 million recovered per auditor. Special audits specifically, separate from general tax audits and investigations: a useful reminder of how much revenue sits in routine compliance work rather than headline fraud cases.

Canada

A Canadian director was held personally liable for over $700,000 in unremitted GST/HST. In Stevens v The King, the Tax Court rejected both his resignation defence (unverifiable, no filing, no witness) and his due diligence defence (delegating to a finance director without active oversight).

Suriname

Suriname’s VAT revenue is up, credited to process improvements and stricter controls at the Tax and Customs Administration. The enforcement focus holds through 2028.

EU

The reverse charge mechanism’s actual impact on cross-border fraud is back under scrutiny. The European Parliament’s FISC subcommittee devoted a June session to evaluating whether it has delivered on its promise. Current authorisations expire on 31 December 2026.

OECD

AI is cutting VAT non-compliance detection from nine months to three. That figure, cited by an OECD Tax Policy Advisor at Tax and Development Days 2026, reflects tax authorities moving from rule-based risk engines to AI tools that detect unusual trading patterns and suspicious refund claims at scale, some run by small teams with limited budgets.

Other

• California will tax SaaS and prewritten software from 1 January 2027. Governor Newsom signed SB 122 on 29 June. Ebooks, music, streaming and video games remain exempt. 
• Utah extended sales tax to streaming-only digital content, including audio-visual works, e-books, gaming services and SaaS, from 1 July 2026 under SB 162. Businesses selling digital products into Utah should review their exposure. 
• The Philippines’ BIR issued further clarification on VAT obligations for digital service providers. In B2B transactions, reverse charge applies, but foreign providers with purely B2B transactions still need to register and file, including nil returns. 
• Curaçao has made VAT introduction a political priority under its Landspakket reform agreement with the Netherlands. A concrete implementation plan was due before summer 2026, though several reforms under the same package are already running past the 2027 deadline. 
• Georgia has clarified the VAT treatment of barter transactions, covering how taxable amounts are determined when no cash changes hands. The practical target is the creator economy, following a broader trend of jurisdictions clarifying the treatment of non-cash arrangements.

Image by: DC Studio

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