Karoline Spies
Born in Austria, since July 2020 Dr. Karoline Spies is professor at the Institute for Austrian and International Tax Law at WU, Austria. Prior to that, Karoline Spies has been researcher at the same Institute for more than eight years and has also gained practical experience at an international tax consultancy company. Her main research areas are EU tax law and VAT/GST law. Karoline Spies also has been research fellow at various different institutions (e.g. Singapore Management University, CJEU), has published more than 70 papers in national and international journals and books and is member of the VAT Expert Group at the European Commission.Courses:
Global Trends in VAT/GST
The course will cover the following issues: (I.) VAT/GST as an indirect tax on consumption, (II.) VAT in the European Union as a comprehensively harmonized tax, (III.) VAT/GST outside the EU, (IV.) The principle of neutrality in VAT, (V.) Exemptions in VAT: the “original sin”, (VI.) Taxation of public bodies, (VII.) Allocation of taxing rights under VAT/GST, (VIII.) Compliance, collection mechanisms, the VAT gap, and anti-fraud measures, (IX.) Policy making and the outlook for the future. For each section, trends globally will be compared with developments within the EU.
EU and Indirect Taxation
Harmonization of indirect taxes within the EU has already made significant progress. The legal framework of harmonization plays a pivotal part in this course, which aims to give students an overview of the status quo in VAT harmonization. Emphasis is placed on the basic principles of the common VAT system according to the VAT Directive (as amended) and the Internal Market concept. This course also serves the purpose of giving an overview of the judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU on VAT issues and illustrates the status quo of tax harmonization in the area of the indirect taxation of consumption.
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