Exportation with no customs document
The failure to comply with the formal requirement of placing the goods intended to be exported under the export customs procedure cannot lead to the exporter losing his right to the VAT exemption on export, provided that it is established that the goods concerned have actually left the territory of the European Union (28/03/2019, C‑275/18).
In the case at hand, the goods concerned were dispatched by post and that is the reason why the customs documents were not established. However, the substance-over-form concept may definitely be extended to other situations where customs documents are missing, provided of course that alternative proofs of dispatch are available.
Consequences if VAT has been paid to the supplier although the reverse charge was applicable
Under the reverse charge regime, no VAT payment takes place between the supplier and the customer. The recipient of the invoice must indeed self-assess the VAT due.
In case a supplier incorrectly charged VAT instead of applying the reverse charge, the Court unsurprisingly confirms that since the VAT paid to the supplier was not due, the customer may not claim a right to deduct that VAT.
It must be noted that if, in a situation where (i) the VAT has actually been paid to the Treasury by the supplier and (ii) the reimbursement of the VAT by the supplier to the recipient of the services is impossible or excessively difficult (in particular in the case of insolvency), the principle of effectiveness may require that the recipient of the invoice be able to address its application for reimbursement to the tax authorities directly.
Such a reimbursement application is however distinct from the right to deduction as such. The tax authority is by the way not required, before rejecting the claim for deduction of VAT, either to ascertain whether the supplier can correct the invoice or to order such correction (11/04/2019, C-691/17)
Place of taxation of services in respect of admission to events
Article 53 of the EU VAT Directive provides that the place of supply of services in respect of admission to events, including educational events, supplied to a taxable person is the place where those events actually take place. As a consequence thereof, VAT becomes due in that country.
Some member states have however adopted diverging and confusing administrative positions, which usually aim at considering that the services in respect to admission to events are subject to the default B2B rule (article 44 of the EU VAT directive) under specific circumstances. The local authorities have indeed introduced factual criteria (e.g. the duration, the fact that the event is open "to the public" or not, …) for determining whether an event should be subject to local VAT or not. However, these rather far-fetched criteria do not appear in the text of the European VAT Directive.
The Court has just recalled that the services covered by the rule covering the access to educational and scientific events, such as conferences and seminars, include services whose essential characteristics are to grant a right of access to an event in exchange for a ticket or remuneration. This is notably the case for professional training. According to the Court, the fact that these courses were the subject of registration and a prior payment is irrelevant (13/03/2019, C-647/17).
This judgment invalidates the administrative positions taken by some countries, which determine the place of taxation of such services based on the number of days of the event or other criteria not provided for in the Directive.
Split payments postponed till January 2020
The measure was supposed to become mandatory on 1 July 2019.
As a reminder, Polish VAT will have to be paid to a separate and blocked Polish bank account of the supplier for invoices issued in relation to B2B supplies of specific goods and services.
Speak to our VAT Expert
