Tax & Legal

Following a preliminary request from Romania, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) had to deal with the refusal of the local tax authorities on the right to input VAT deduction if services are not used for taxable transactions. Specifically, it refers to the VAT deduction for intercompany consultancy and administrative services with a supplier located in a country different than Romania.

Following yet another preliminary ruling regarding the German regulations of consolidated tax groups for VAT purposes the European Court of Justice held that a VAT group’s internal transactions do not fall within the scope of value added tax and remain non-taxable.

In a case previously dealt with by the European Court of Justice the Supreme Tax Court saw the need for yet another preliminary ruling regarding the current German VAT situation of non-taxable intra-group transactions. In his Opinion the Advocate General takes the view that a VAT group’s internal transactions do not fall within the scope of value added tax.

The ECJ held that services by an EU head office, who is part of a VAT group, to its foreign branch are in general subject to VAT if the cost of such services are charged to the branch. For VAT purposes head office and its branch located in another Member State must be regarded as separate taxable persons.