Discretion of the Member States EU VAT case law

4 cases of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union on this point of VAT law, from 2012 to 2021.

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Provisions these cases interpret most

Article 13 of Sixth Directive 77/388/EEC Exemptions · 2 of these cases
Article 69 of Directive 2006/112/EC Intra-Community acquisition of goods · 1 of these cases
Article 206 of Directive 2006/112/EC Payment arrangements · 1 of these cases
Article 273 of Directive 2006/112/EC Obligations of taxable persons and certain non-taxable persons · 1 of these cases
Article 98 of Directive 2006/112/EC Reduced rates · 1 of these cases

The 4 cases, most recent first

Under each case, what the Court decided, from its summary. The summaries are AI-generated and are not official documents: open the case for the Court’s own text.

C-855/19 Dyrektor Izby Administracji Skarbowej w Bydgoszczy (Acquisitions intracommunautaires de gazole)

Judgment · 9 September 2021 · Poland

Early payment of VAT on intra-Community acquisitions of fuel

Articles 69, 206 and 273 preclude such a rule. Chargeable event, chargeability and the obligation to pay are three successive stages: the interim payment option in the second sentence of Article 206 lets Member States bring forward the date of payment only of VAT that has already become chargeable, not the date of chargeability itself. Article 273 cannot justify a measure conflicting with other provisions of the Directive. The remaining questions did not need answering. Traders making intra-Community acquisitions of excise goods, particularly fuel wholesalers and tax warehouse operators, can challenge accelerated payment demands and associated late payment interest where the deadline falls before invoice issue or the fifteenth day of the following month.

C-499/16 AZ

Judgment · 9 November 2017 · Poland

Shelf life as a criterion for the reduced rate on pastry goods

Article 98 does not preclude such legislation. Member States may apply a reduced rate selectively to a concrete and specific aspect of an Annex III category, and the CN is only one permissible means of delimitation. The qualification is that this holds only if fiscal neutrality is respected, which the national court must verify. If the average Polish consumer regards longer-life and shorter-life pastries as similar and interchangeable, the differential rate is precluded. If the shelf life criterion does not favour one over the other, they are not competing goods. Confirms that reduced-rate boundaries within a food category may rest on national criteria unrelated to the CN, so producers challenging such lines cannot simply point to a common tariff classification.

C-592/15 British Film Institute

Judgment · 15 February 2017 · United Kingdom

No direct effect for the cultural services exemption

The provision does not have direct effect. The word "certain" means Member States are not obliged to exempt all cultural services. They decide which to exempt and may tax the rest. That discretion goes to the scope of the exemption, not merely to conditions of application, which distinguishes the case from Linneweber and JP Morgan Fleming Claverhouse. An untransposed provision of that kind cannot be invoked before national courts. The remaining questions were not answered. Museums, cinemas, theatres, galleries and other recognised cultural bodies cannot bypass national lists of exempt cultural services by invoking the Directive, whether to reclaim historic VAT for pre-transposition periods or to challenge a narrow domestic exemption.

C-174/11 Zimmermann

Judgment · 15 November 2012 · Germany

Recognition of private providers as charitable for the welfare exemption

Article 13A(1)(g), read in the light of fiscal neutrality, precludes making the exemption for out-patient care supplied by commercial providers subject to a condition such as the one at issue, that in the preceding calendar year the costs were borne by the statutory social security or social welfare authorities in at least two thirds of cases, where that condition is not capable of ensuring equal treatment in recognising the charitable character of bodies other than those governed by public law. Member States keep a discretion in granting that recognition, and the extent of public funding is a factor they may weigh, but the discretion is exercised within the limits of neutrality. The same care exempted without any threshold when supplied by listed welfare associations cannot be taxed when supplied by a commercial provider. The judgment fixes that the discretion Member States hold in recognising a body as charitable under Article 13A(1)(g) is bounded by fiscal neutrality, and that a funding-mix threshold fails where it separates providers of the same care by their status rather than by the care itself.