Value-added tax (VAT) fraud comes in many forms: it can range from the failure to declare and/or pay VAT and the fraudulent use of the right to deduct input tax, to what is known as VAT carousel fraud. This article describes what Germany does to combat VAT fraud and details how European administrative cooperation in this area has been enhanced.

In 2017, which taxes in Germany had the highest amounts of unpaid taxes, and how many years of imprisonment were imposed nationwide for tax crimes? These and other useful figures from the annual statistics pertaining to the prosecution of tax crimes and tax-related administrative offences in Germany are explained in this article.

This article provides basic international comparisons of certain major tax types. The comparisons cover the member states of the European Union plus several additional advanced economies (the United States, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and Norway) and generally reflect the state of the law in these countries as of end 2017.