This article tries to present the major aspects concerning the value added tax in the context of economic crisis in European Union countries and Romania. The paper realizes an analysis of the impact of economic crises on VAT in the European space underlining the current situation when the revenues from VAT represent a valuable source of financing the public expenditures. In Romania the economic crises has led to increasing of VAT rate from 19% to 24%. This measure is an important fiscal measure for the state budget and this study tries to reflect the impact of this VAT rate increase on the public revenues and consumption.