with No Comments

Several EU Member States have agreed to participate in a test case for private VAT ruling requests relating to cross-border situations.

Businesses who want to engage in a complex cross-border transaction involving two or more Member States may submit their project to the tax administration of their country of residence. On this basis tax authorities, after consulting with tax administrations of other Member States involved, will give businesses reassurance on the appropriate VAT treatment and applicable obligations in all Member States concerned

The test case started on 1 June 2013 and is scheduled to last until September 2018. The following Member States participate in this project: Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, France, Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Malta, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Italy and Ireland.

You will find hereafter recent published decisions.

Member Stats concerned: Sweden, United Kingdom & Portugal

Facts:

A Swedish school organizes in-service teacher training courses in the UK and Portugal for teachers and school staff. The participants come from different countries in Europe and different schools. The training courses last for a maximum of 6 days. The Swedish school procures accommodation, food, and local transport and re-invoices all of these costs to the schools signed up to the courses. The schools are invoiced for the full package, including course materials.

Ruling:

The Tour Operators Margin Scheme should be applied on the supply of accommodation, food and local travel arrangements as these supplies are bought-in and not in-house services. The place of supply for those services will be Sweden [where the provider re-invoicing the costs is established]. The training arrangements are in-house services that should be considered as admission to an event taxable in the UK or Portugal depending on where the event takes place.

Comments

NPOs organizing events regularly re-invoice costs separately such as accommodation, catering, etc. with local VAT to participants. In some Member States [e.g. the United Kingdom], this VAT treatment could be challenged by local authorities considering such transaction as falling into the scope of the margin regime of travel agency. As a consequence, no local VAT should have been charged to participants and VAT incurred on the costs would not be recoverable.