Who is affected?
As you may know, EKAER reporting affects most of the traders of goods from/into/in Hungary, provided that goods are transported by qualified road vehicles. The affected parties are mainly traders, not freight-forwarders. Goods owned by traders may be seized, 40 percent penalty may be imposed, and potentially (although unlikely) input VAT recovery may be denied too if the goods are transported without EKAER (Road Trade Control System) formalities. Paradoxically, it is freight-forwarders and not traders who have the information that needs to be reported by traders – such as the license plate of the vehicle, time of departure and arrivals, description, quantity and value of goods. We urge you to contact your freight-forwarders to agree on how the reporting will be done (the task itself, but not the responsibility may be outsourced to freight-forwarders).
Your business is affected if it supplies or bring goods into Hungary from EU another location, supplies or removes goods from Hungary to another EU location or goods supplied within Hungary for the first instance, provided that goods are partially or fully transported by qualified road vehicles.
How can RSM DTM Hungary help you?
We can help you to identify transactions reportable into EKAER and provide further advice once we hear from the officials, but at the moment we do not have the capacity to report EKAER transactions on your behalf.
We think the new regulation aimed to combat VAT fraud is unfair to genuine businesses, lacks details, brings inadequate admin burden to businesses and potentially infringes EU law – we have raised our concerns to the officials and wait for the response. Unfortunately, at the current state of affairs, we have no choice but to comply (and ask you to comply too) with the new regulation from 1 January 2015.
Action required on your side
While the details of EKAER regulation are still unclear, we urge you to contact your freight-forwarders or local affiliates to agree on how the reporting will be done (the task itself, but not the responsibility may be outsourced to freight-forwarders).
