Raise your hand if you have any certainty of when recharges of costs between a branch and its head office fall outside the scope of VAT. Some time ago, we would have been pretty confident to regard such intra-entity ‘services’[1] – i.e., transactions between a branch and its head office – as falling outside the scope…

The VAT treatment of the activities carried out by public entities has traditionally been a source of debate. Article 13 of the VAT Directive offers a short and limited regulation of the activities of public entities for VAT purposes. Generally speaking, the activities of public entities acting as such (that is to say: when using…

On 4 March 2021, the CJEU issued a ruling on Frenetikexito (Case C-581/19) that is bound to throw Portuguese gym-goers off-balance. For some time, the Portuguese tax authorities have been assessing VAT on nutrition counselling provided by fitness studios on the basis such services are dependent and ancillary to fitness training. In a series of…

The Champions League is back in town and tonight, its iconic hymn echoes through the speakers of Europe’s greatest clubs’ mostly empty stadiums: “Die Meister! Die Besten! Les grandes équipes! The champions!” To my personal delight, I’ve always found football more fun than I found it to be important. Like every year, my favourite and local FC…

In a prior blog, the author highlighted some of the most frequent debates arising from VAT and the public bodies’ activities or, more generally, the activities subsidised by public bodies. One key point for establishing whether public bodies’ activities must be subject to VAT or not relates to the aim of preventing distortions of competition…

The Italian legislation on excise duties, and in particular Article 24 of Legislative Decree no. 504 of 26 October 1995 (hereinafter, “the Italian Excise Duties Act”) that provides an exemption for fuels used for navigation in general with the carve-out of recreational shipping, has been considered incompatible with EU law by the EU Commission recently….

On 10 July 2020, the Italian Supreme Court (also ‘Court’) issued its decision No. 14756 (‘Decision 14756/2020’, published in H&I 2020/470 with comments by Arginelli and Tenore) dealing, amongst others, with the interpretation of the beneficial owner requirement under the Interest and  Royalty Directive (Directive 2003/49/EC; ‘IRD’) and the abuse of the IRD. The case…

The Revenue Agency confirms the exemption of income derived abroad by foreign maritime employees who are tax residents of Italy The Italian Revenue Agency has recently issued a ruling (No. 134/2020) clarifying that the income derived by a Spanish citizen (and Italian-tax resident) maritime employee working aboard a ship flying a non-Italian flag for more…

In its judgment of January 21, 2020 (Santander case, available here), the European Court of Justice (ECJ) not only prevented the Spanish Central Tax Tribunal (Tribunal Económico-Administrativo Central – TEAC) from requesting a preliminary ruling due to its lack of juridical independence (para. 77), but it also recalled its obligation to ensure that EU law…

The judgments of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the withholding tax exemption provided by the Interest and Royalties Directive (available here – the ‘IRD judgment’) and the Parent-Subsidiary Directive (available here – ‘the PSD judgment’) on February 26, 2019 (‘the Danish cases’) have raised many issues to discuss. As some authors have pointed…