Member States may provide that the person liable for the payment of VAT is the taxable person to whom the supplies of goods or services as listed are made [art. 199 and sub. of the VAT Directive].
Local reverse charge mechanism has been implemented in the Austrian VAT Act regardless of whether supplier and recipient are established or not in Austria for the following goods and services:
- Construction work including assembly, repair, maintenance, cleaning, alteration and demolition services in relation to immovable property and the supply of staff engaged in the above-mentioned construction services. The reverse charge is applicable if construction services are performed by a company which is subcontracted to perform a construction service (e.g. by a general contractor) or if the construction services are performed by a company that habitually renders construction services itself. In other words, reverse charge is only applicable if the recipient is assigned to perform the construction work himself or if he usually performs construction work;
- Domestic salesof certain electronic goods [mobile phones and integrated circuit devices [2012], laptops, tablets, video games consoles [2014]provided the net invoice amount exceeds€ 5,000;
- Domestic sales of raw and semi-finished metals according to Chapter 71 and section XV of the Combined Nomenclature [except some positions] provided the net invoice amounts exceeds € 5,000 (under this amount, reverse charge is optional), unless they are subject to the scrap-VAT regulation [“Schrott-Umsatzsteuerverordnung”] or to the margin scheme according to Austrian regulation;
- Domestic sales of scrap [as listed in the Austrian VAT decree relating to scrap].