Giorgio Beretta has received the prestigious 2021 Maurice Lauré Prize for his doctoral dissertation entitled ‘European VAT and the Sharing Economy’, published by Wolters Kluwer. Beretta’s research study addresses the legal challenges in applying European Union VAT to the new business models of the sharing economy.

Giorgio Beretta is an Assistant Professor in Indirect Taxation at the Amsterdam Law School and a member of the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law (ACTL) research project on designing the tax system for a Cashless, Platform based and Technology driven society (CPT).

About the dissertation

He received the Maurice Lauré Prize for his dissertation entitled European VAT and the Sharing Economy, published by Wolters Kluwer – EUCOTAX Series on European Taxation (no. 65).

The study addresses the legal challenges in applying European Union VAT to the new business models of the sharing economy. The sharing economy – Giorgio explains in his book – has pushed the digital frontier farther and farther, so as to include within it even services once not capable of direct delivery from a remote location, such as accommodation and passenger transport. In the virtual marketplaces shaped and ruled by new digital platforms, foundational dichotomous categories, such as those between suppliers and customers, business and private spheres, employees and self-employed are largely no longer viable as organizational legal structures. Against this background, the book formulates tentative solutions and possible recommendations with an aim of reforming the current European VAT system.

International Fiscal Association

The International Fiscal Association (IFA) instituted this prestigious Prize in order to encourage scientific work on international indirect taxation. The Prize is named in honour of Maurice Lauré, who was instrumental in the first implementation of Value Added Tax (VAT) in France in the early 1950s, a system of taxation now applied in nearly 170 jurisdictions worldwide.

The award ceremony will take place during the IFA Virtual Event “The Global Tax Agreement: The Two-Pillar Solution” on 29 November – 1 December 2021. The Prize consists of a certificate and an amount of EUR 5,000.