On 5 May 2023, the government submitted to the Luxembourg Parliament Bill 8207 to implement Council Directive (EU) 2020/284 amending the VAT Directive ("Bill").
The Bill introduces new obligations for payment service providers to keep records of the "cross-border" payments they process and their beneficiaries, and to report the collected data to the Luxembourg tax authorities. The data collected will then be stored and processed before being centralised in a European database called Central Electronic System Of Payment Information ("CESOP") and made available to the Member States' anti-VAT fraud agents.
The payment service providers include payment institutions, credit institutions, electronic money institutions and post office giro institutions that are established in Luxembourg ("PSP").
A payment (i.e. classic payment transactions and money remittances) is cross-border when it is made by a payer located in an EU Member State to a beneficiary located in another country (be it a Member State or a third country).
Data to be submitted by the PSP includes inter alia, the BIC, or any other unique identifier of the PSP transmitting the data, name and address of the payee, VAT number or national tax number of the payee, if available IBAN, or any other identifier of the payee, BIC, or any other business identifier for PSP, individual payment transaction details, payment refunds.
The PSP will be required to transmit this data on a quarterly basis to the Luxembourg tax authorities and to keep record of the reporting data electronically for three years (from the end of the calendar year in which the respective payment was made).
The record keeping and reporting obligation only applies where, during a calendar quarter, a payment service provider executes more than 25 cross-border payments per quarter intended for the same beneficiary.
The law should enter into force on 1 January 2024.
