Rights of the defence EU VAT case law

6 cases of the Court of Justice and the General Court of the European Union on this point of VAT law, from 2015 to 2025.

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Provisions these cases interpret most

Article 273 of Directive 2006/112/EC Obligations of taxable persons and certain non-taxable persons · 3 of these cases
Article 168 of Directive 2006/112/EC Origin and scope of right of deduction · 2 of these cases
Article 250 of Directive 2006/112/EC Returns · 2 of these cases
Article 2 of Directive 2006/112/EC Subject matter and scope · 2 of these cases
Article 64 of Directive 2006/112/EC Supply of goods or services · 1 of these cases
Article 178 of Directive 2006/112/EC Rules governing exercise of the right of deduction · 1 of these cases
Article 167 of Directive 2006/112/EC Origin and scope of right of deduction · 1 of these cases
Article 213 of Directive 2006/112/EC Identification · 1 of these cases

The 6 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-277/24 Adjak

Judgment · 27 February 2025 · Poland

Directors' joint and several liability and the rights of the defence

Exclusion of the potentially liable director from the company's assessment proceedings is permissible. At that stage liability is only a possibility, and participation could compromise confidentiality and delay collection. But the exclusion is lawful only if, in the subsequent joint and several liability proceedings, the director can effectively challenge the findings of fact and legal classifications made in the assessment proceedings and can access the tax authority's file, subject to the rights of others. Member States may keep assessment and derivative liability in separate tracks, but the second track must be a genuine opportunity to reopen the quantum and characterisation of the debt, not merely to test the statutory conditions of liability.

C-696/22 C (Court-appointed administrators and liquidators)

Judgment · 13 June 2024 · Romania

Chargeability on continuous services and proof of the link for input deduction

Such continuous services fall within Article 64(1) where they give rise to successive statements of account or payments, so VAT becomes chargeable on expiry of each period irrespective of non-payment. Article 90(1) governs non-payment. Increased turnover or volume of taxable transactions is irrelevant to the deduction link. The objective content, actual use and exclusive reason for the purchase decide. A hearing breach requires annulment only if the outcome might have differed, suspension of enforcement being irrelevant. Suppliers billing periodically, insolvency practitioners, professional firms and any provider with milestone or periodic fee arrangements, cannot defer chargeability by making payment conditional on the customer's cash position.

C-430/19 C.F. (Tax inspection)

Judgment · 4 June 2020 · Romania

Access to the audit file and evidence beyond the invoice

Denial of access to file information relied on requires annulment only where the national court finds that, absent the irregularity, the outcome of the procedure might have been different. Where the authority has merely uncorroborated doubts that the invoiced transactions occurred, deduction cannot be refused for want of evidence additional to the invoice. Refusal requires objective evidence that the taxable person knew or should have known of fraud, established by the authority without imposing checks that are not the customer's responsibility. Useful for anyone facing assessments built on suppliers' apparent lack of resources or a more favourable tax status.

C-189/18 Glencore Agriculture Hungary

Judgment · 16 October 2019

Findings made against suppliers, and the conditions for using them against the customer

The Court held that such legislation or practice is not precluded, subject to three conditions. First, it must not relieve the tax authority of the obligation to disclose to the taxable person the evidence, including evidence originating in the related procedures, on which it intends to base its decision, and the taxable person must not be deprived of the right effectively to challenge those findings of fact and legal classifications in the procedure brought against him. Second, the taxable person must be able to have access, during that procedure, to all the evidence obtained in the related or other procedures on which the authority intends to rely or which may assist the exercise of the rights of the defence, unless objectives of public interest justify restricting access. Third, the court hearing the action against the decision must be able to review the legality of the way that evidence was obtained and used, and the findings in the decisions taken against the suppliers that are decisive for the outcome. The judgment accepts the administrative economy of reusing findings made against suppliers, but attaches to it a set of conditions that operate at three separate stages: disclosure by the authority, access by the taxable person, and review by the court.

C-298/16 Ispas

Judgment · 9 November 2017

Access to the inspection file in a VAT assessment, and what has to be handed over

The Court held that the general principle of respect for the rights of the defence requires that, in such national procedures, an individual is to have the opportunity to have communicated to him, at his request, the information and documents in the administrative file which were considered by the public authority when it adopted its decision, unless objectives of public interest warrant restricting access to that information and those documents. The obligation is therefore triggered by a request, it extends to the material actually relied on in adopting the decision rather than to the file as a whole, and it is qualified by public interest objectives which the national court is to weigh. The ruling settles the shape of the right in a VAT inspection along three lines at once: it is exercised on request rather than conferred automatically, it covers the material the authority considered in adopting the decision rather than everything gathered, and it yields to public interest objectives.

C-419/14 WebMindLicenses

Judgment · 17 December 2015 · Hungary

Offshore licensing of website know-how and abuse of rights

Common ownership, the licensor's founder exercising influence over the know-how and its exploitation, use of subcontractors and the licensor's own motives are not decisive. Abuse requires proof of a wholly artificial arrangement, assessed by whether the licensee genuinely had premises, human and technical resources and acted in its own name, on its own behalf, at its own risk. VAT paid abroad does not bar adjustment. A cooperation request is required where useful or essential. Covert criminal evidence may be used only if lawfully obtained and used, proportionate, and disclosed with a hearing. Otherwise it must be disregarded. Confirms that rate arbitrage through an offshore licensee is not abusive per se. Relevant to digital, gaming and adult content operators using Madeira or similar structures, and to intellectual property licensing generally.