(1888PressRelease)
August 20, 2009 - Esch sur Alzette, Luxembourg - OneTree Technologies, a Luxembourg based company, announced today the immediate, pan-European availability of the VAT Refund Core Asset (VRCA).
Starting 1 January 2010, all European Union (EU) Member States will have to comply with the new EU-directive 2008/9/EC with respect to VAT refund. The oncoming VAT refund procedures are completely different from the current ones and must be supported by an information system, as manual processes will not be acceptable any more.
EU compliance
The new directive (2008/9/EC) requires EU Member States to fully automate their VAT refund procedures. If a Member State does not have a compliant information system in place by 1 January 2010, it will not be able to accept and forward VAT refund applications by persons (i.e. companies) established in the Member State, nor accept and refund applications sent by other EU Member States. This could potentially result in financial consequences of hundreds of millions Euro annually, reputation damage, citizen complaints and painful legal actions.
VAT Refund Core Asset
OneTree Technologies, with the current initiative addressed to all EU Member States as well as countries in EU-accession phase, offers VAT Refund Core Asset (VRCA), an information system, which:
* Can be up and running on 1st January 2010 (deadline for the new EU-directive).
* Provides full legal compliance according to the requirements of the EU-directive.
* Accompanies the EU Member State to successful EU certification, as soon as the system is installed at the Member State.
* Is fully functional in providing the ability to accept and manage VAT refund applications from locally established persons, as well as manage the refund applications of foreign established persons.
* Forms the basis for accommodating the specific needs of the EU member state, once legal compliance has been achieved.
* Is delivered as a fixed price offering that includes the IT solution and a defined time for site inspection, installation and training.
Irrespective of the preparation of EU member states with respect to the new EU directive, VRCA is a solution which removes the risk of any delivery delay or failure of current development (contingency), as it guarantees a fully operational system, on time and on specifications.
VRCA is a fully integrated information system, which embeds IBM software components. OneTree Technologies is an OEM business partner of IBM. OneTree Technologies has been awarded the implementation of the VAT refund system of Luxembourg.
VRCA as a contingency measure
OneTree Technologies offers VRCA as a risk-free, guaranteed contingency measure, which could be implemented in parallel and not necessarily as a replacement of ongoing development efforts of a Member State. VRCA is intended to help the Member State to meet legal compliance on time, before the deadline.
Freedom for the future
Having met legal compliance with the help of VRCA, the Member States still have freedom of choice for the next steps:
* They can decide to replace VRCA with their own custom-built IT system (once the latter has been completed and fully tested for compliance).
* They can decide to keep VRCA and further build on it; have its functionality extended; have it integrated with other existing IT systems, etc.
###
