In a most recently published judgment, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that the VAT Directive precludes a national legislation which provides that one of the partners in a civil law partnership devoid of legal personality separate from that of its partners and providing taxable services is to be deemed to be the person liable to pay value added tax in respect of taxable services provided by the other partners in that partnership.
Pending before the ECJ are currently two questions of relevance regarding the German regulation of consolidated tax groups for VAT purposes (VAT group). In her Opinion on both cases the Advocate General takes the view that the sole taxable person is, in principle, the VAT group itself and not (as under German VAT law) the controlling member of the group.
In a Czech case the ECJ once again had the opportunity to comment on the material requirements for the deduction of input VAT. In the current case, the focus of the judicial review was on the ways to demonstrate and prove that the supplier of the service is a taxable person within the meaning of the VAT Directive.
