A European business, which is registered for VAT in Italy as a foreign entity, made a supply which was subject to Italian VAT. In first instance, an invoice with no VAT was addressed to the customer. It however appeared that it was a mistake and that local VAT had to be charged. As a consequence, the supplier decided to correct the invoice and regularize the situation a posteriori.
The question is about the right of the customer to recover that late-charged VAT even if the legal deadline has ended.
The Italian Authorities published a ruling (Riposta n. 267) about the above-mentioned case and confirmed that the customer had the right to obtain a refund of the input VAT. According to the ruling, the starting point for the determination of the deadline does not depend on the moment when the transaction took place. The date of receipt of the correcting document should rather be taken in consideration.
In this case, in order to exercise the right of deduction, the recipient of the invoice – a company without identification for VAT purposes in Italy – however had to appoint a tax representative (or register for Italian VAT if necessary) prior to the payment of the VAT to the supplier.
Source: Agenziaentrate