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…

We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: Axel Cordewener, We Need to Know When Previous Case-Law Has Been ‘Overruled’! – A Plea for More Legal Certainty in EU Tax Law In its recent judgment inW AG the Court of Justice of…

We are happy to inform you that the latest issue of the journal is now available and includes the following contributions: Han Kogels, A Changing World Making the Road to Carbon Neutrality Even More Bumpy Since the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Glasgow in November 2021 (COP26) the world has changed dramatically. In February…

The focus of this contribution are the newly proposed rules for the sharing platform economy under the VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA) reform package, published on 8 December 2022 by the European Commission. The proposed rules[1] envisage the introduction of a new Article 28a into the VAT Directive stipulating: “Notwithstanding Article 28, a taxable…

Article 59a of the VAT Directive (Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax) was implemented into the Spanish domestic legislation through Article 70(2) of the Spanish VAT Law (Law No. 37 of 28 December 1992 on value added tax). This article contains a particular place of supply rule,…

Should services performed by a member of a board of directors towards the company of which s/he is a member be subject to VAT? This is a question that keeps many VAT legislators, authorities, and advisors around the world busy. It is an area that has seen numerous changes in tax policy, sometimes as a…

Customer’s status and capacity under EU VAT place of supply rules Other than for attributing VAT personality to suppliers of goods or services, the concept of taxable persons is relevant for applying the place of supply rules for services laid down in Title V, Chapter 3 of the VAT Directive (Articles 43 – 59a) [1]….

Value-Added Tax (VAT) is considered an efficient and neutral form of taxation. Yet, although its invoice-credit method and the system of fractioned payments make it a self-policing tax, the VAT can be rather complex and costly to administer for businesses, which spend significant time and resources to comply with obligations associated with this tax. VAT…

Article 59ab of the VAT Directive (Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax) was implemented into the Spanish domestic legislation through Article 70(2) of the Spanish VAT law (Law No. 37 of 28 December 1992 on value added tax). As is well known, this article contains a special…

The very recent CJEU judgement in Berlin Chemie A. Menarini v Administraţia Fiscală pentru Contribuabili Mijlocii Bucureşti (Case C-333/20) ECLI:EU:C:2022:291, admirably examined by Giorgio Beretta last week considered the circumstances in which a subsidiary might be a VAT fixed establishment (FE) of its parent company or another affiliate. A Romanian company supplied advertising, marketing and…

A subsidiary cannot be a fixed establishment (FE) under EU VAT in (almost) any case. This is a (quite) reassuring takeaway for VAT businesses from the much-awaited decision by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Berlin Chemie A. Menarini (Case C-333/20). With its ruling on 7 April 2022, the CJEU (re?)affirmed…

On 10 March 2022, the Spanish Tax Administration issued a ruling concerning the VAT treatment of the transfer, through an online internet auction, of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) that grant their purchasers certain rights of use (hereinafter: ‘the Ruling’).[1] The Spanish Tax Administration provides through this ruling a comprehensive analysis of the taxation for VAT of…

Through the judgment in Case C-714/20 issued on 12 May 2022 [1], the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) clarified that the indirect customs representative is liable, jointly and severally with the importer, only for customs duties relating to the goods and not for import VAT. This conclusion consolidates the EU jurisprudence on…

About a year ago, a Regional Fiscal Court in Cologne (Germany) ruled virtual renting of virtual land to be a VATable transaction.[1] In the case, a German taxpayer generated revenue by renting out virtual land. The taxpayer – or rather his avatar – received virtual currency in exchange for the virtual land. The taxpayer then…