commitments on the new programming period and the advances paid. As a result of the limited interim payments, the RAL has necessarily increased.
The Commission has taken steps in 2008 and 2009 to achieve progress in the compliance assessment procedure through transmission of reminder letters, contacts and meetings with Member States. The regulatory provisions relating to the reimbursement of pre-financing in the absence of an application for payments within 24 months, as well as the application of the automatic decommitment rule, will also impose pressure on Member States. See also reply to 3.6.
As at 30 June 2009, the total number of reports received and approved represent 93 % and 58 % of the 2007-2013 appro
Revenue TABLE OF CONTENTS
Paragraph Introduction 4.1-4.9
Audit scope 4.3-4.9
Traditional own resources 4.4-4.6
VAT- and GNI-based own resources 4.7-4.9
Regularity of transactions 4.10-4.12
Traditional own resources 4.10-4.11
VAT- and GNI-based own resources 4.12
Effectiveness of systems 4.13-4.28
Traditional own resources 4.13-4.16
VAT-based own resources 4.17-4.21
Monitoring of the application of the VAT directives 4.18-4.19 Report under Article 12 of Council Regulation (EEC, Euratom) No 1553/89 4.20-4.21
GNI-based own resources 4.22-4.28
Annual GNI data 4.22
Compilation of National Accounts in Member States 4.23-4.24
General and specific reservations 4.25-4.27
Verification of GNI inventories in the Member States 4.28
Conclusions and recommendations 4.29-4.36
Traditional own resources 4.31-4.32
VAT-based own resources 4.33-4.34
THE COURT'S OBSERVATIONS THE COMMISSION'S REPLIES INTRODUCTION
4.1. This chapter presents the Court’s specific assessment of Revenue. The revenue side of the budget of the European Union consists of own resources and other revenue. As shown in Table 4.1 own resources constitute by far the main source of financing of budgetary expenditure (89,4 %).
Table 4.1 — Revenue for the financial year 2008 Budget
Title Type of revenue Description Revenue 2008 (million euro) %
1 Traditional own
resources (TOR) Agricultural duties (Chapter 10) 1 278 1,0
Sugar and isoglucose levies (Chapter 11) 708 0,6
Customs duties (Chapter 12) 15 297 12,6
1 VAT-based own
resource VAT (Value Added Tax) -based resource from the current financial year (Chapter 13) 17 966 14,8 1 GNI-based own
resource GNI (Gross National Income) -based resource from the current financial year (Chapter 14) 73 015 60,1 1 Correction of
budgetary imbalances UK correction (Chapter 15) 385 0,3
TOTAL OWN RESOURCES 108 649 89,4
3 Surpluses, balances and adjustments 4 174 3,4
4 Revenue accruing from persons working with the Institutions and other
Community bodies 977 0,8
5 Revenue accruing from the administrative operation of the Institutions 353 0,3 6 Contributions and refunds in connection with Community agreements
and programmes 5 564 4,6
7 Interest on late payments and fines 1 794 1,5
8 Borrowing and lending operations 34 0,0
9 Miscellaneous revenue 39 0,0
TOTAL OTHER REVENUE 12 935 10,6
Total revenue for the year 121 584 100,0 Source: Annual Accounts, 2008.
4.2. On 26 January 2009 the Council adopted amended rules ( 1 ) implementing the new Decision on the system of the European Communities’ own resources (2007/436/EC, Euratom) ( 2 ), which came retroactively into effect from 1 January 2007 on 1 March 2009. As the ratification procedure had not been completed by the end of 2008, the necessary recalculations of the 2007 and 2008 Member States’ VAT and GNI-based contributions were made in 2009. _____________
( 1 ) Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 105/2009 of 26 January
2009 amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 imple menting Decision 2000/597/EC, Euratom on the system of the Communities’ own resources (OJ L 36, 5.2.2009, p. 1).
( 2 ) OJ L 163, 23.6.2007, p. 17.
EN
Audit scope
4.3. The Court selected a representative statistical sample of 60 recovery orders taken from the Commission’s records of receipts of all revenue and examined the regularity of trans actions at the Commission level (see Annex 4.1). The audit included a follow-up of certain previous findings (see Annex 4.2). Additional audit work carried out by the Court is described in paragraphs 4.4 to 4.8.
Traditional own resources
4.4. The Court's audit of the transactions underlying the accounts cannot cover undeclared imports or those that have escaped customs surveillance.
4.5. The Court carried out an assessment of supervisory and control systems in three Member States ( 3 ) and reviewed their accounting systems for traditional own resources. The auditors checked a random sample of 30 import declarations in each of these three Member States.
4.6. The Court assessed the supervisory and control systems at the Commission, including the latter’s inspections in Member States. It examined the accounts for traditional own resources and analysed the flow of duties in order to obtain reasonable assurance that the amounts recorded were complete and correct. The supervisory role of ACOR ( 4 ) was also assessed.
VAT- and GNI-based own resources
4.7. The VAT- and GNI-based own resources are contributions resulting from the application of uniform rates to Member States’ notionally harmonised VAT assessment bases or to the Member States’ GNI, calculated in accordance with Community rules. These two own resources are based on macroeconomic statistics, for which the underlying data cannot be audited directly. For this reason the audit took as its starting point the receipt by the Commission of the macro economic aggregates prepared by the Member States, and then assessed the Commission's systems for processing the data until they are included in the final accounts. The audit thus covered the drawing up of the annual budget and the correctness of the contributions by Member States.
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( 3 ) Czech Republic, Greece and the Netherlands.
( 4 ) Advisory Committee on Own Resources: Article 20 of Council
Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1150/2000 (OJ L 130, 31.5.2000, p. 1).
THE COURT'S OBSERVATIONS THE COMMISSION'S REPLIES 4.8. The audit also assessed the Commission’s supervisory
and control systems which are intended to provide assurance that these resources are correctly calculated and collected, as well as the roles of the ACOR and GNI ( 5 ) Committees. Furthermore the Court examined the supervisory and control systems of the National Statistical Institutes (NSI) for the compilation of National Accounts in four Member States ( 6 ). 4.9. The GNI-based resource is used to balance the budget. Any understatement of GNI for a particular Member State - while not affecting the overall GNI-based own resource - has the effect of increasing the contributions from the other Member States, until the problem is identified and corrected. REGULARITY OF TRANSACTIONS
Traditional own resources
4.10. Traditional own resources are established and collected by the Member States. Three quarters of these amounts are paid to the Community, the remaining quarter being retained to cover collection costs. Each Member State sends to the Commission a monthly statement of established duties (the ‘A’ account statement) and a quarterly statement of those established duties which are not included therein (the ‘B’ account) ( 7 ).
4.11. The Court found that overall the Member States’ statements sent to the Commission were free from material error.
VAT- and GNI-based own resources
4.12. The Court's audit found the calculation of Member States’ contributions and their payment to be free from material error.
EFFECTIVENESS OF SYSTEMS
Traditional own resources
4.13. On-the-spot audits carried out by the Court confirmed that overall the audited supervisory and control systems for customs and for traditional own resources accounting were functioning well.
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( 5 ) Article 4 of Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1287/2003: the
GNI regulation (OJ L 181, 19.7.2003, p. 1). ( 6 ) Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and Poland.
( 7 ) When duties or levies remain unpaid and no security has been
provided, or they are covered by securities but have been chal lenged, Member States may suspend making these resources available by entering them in this separate (‘B’) account.
EN
4.14. However, as in previous years the Court’s audit high lighted problems affecting amounts included in the B accounts which, while not sufficiently material to affect the overall conclusion, should be remedied:
4.14. Because of the many B-accounts that are often kept locally