According to the new regulatory regime of sec. 2b of the German VAT Act, non-taxable cooperation against payment between legal entities under public law is only possible under very specific conditions of sovereignty. In its letter of 14.11.2019, the Federal Ministry of finance has now further restricted the provision of sec. 2b para. 3 no. 2 of the German VAT Act, with the conclusion: Started out a tiger and ended up a bedside rug.

In May 2019, the ECJ ruling in Vega on fuel card transactions was issued, following on from the earlier ECJ decision in Auto Lease Holland. The fuel card sector previously considered the two judgments to be of little relevance, given that they concerned individual cases. However, Austria is now proving that these decisions have the potential for significant impact. The current draft of the Austrian VAT Guidelines update strikes at the core business of fuel card companies: chain transactions will no longer be possible. Fuel will be regarded as being supplied directly from the petrol station operator to the cardholder. Fuel card issuers will be considered to provide a supply of services, possibly even VAT-exempt credit services. This will also apply to toll transactions. All companies involved in the fuel card business will be affected, possibly from as early as November 2019.

Banks outsource some of their tasks to external service providers. Due to the (at least partial) VAT exemption of their output supplies, it is particularly important for banks that their service providers provide their supplies to the bank VAT-exempt. In the legal case Cardpoint (C-42/18), the ECJ ruled on such an outsourcing case. However, the ECJ assumed that the outsourced supply of service (operation of ATMs) was subject to VAT. Due to the ECJ's strongly case-by-case argumentation, it is not possible to draw too many conclusions for other supplies of services to banks.

The practical implementation of the Quick Fixes 2020 is currently the number 1 VAT topic for most companies and their tax advisors. The fact that a draft of the German law already exists for this is certainly beneficial. However, there are a number of detailed questions that make implementation difficult. It is therefore helpful that the EU has published draft Explanatory Notes following discussions in the VAT Expert Group and the Group on the future of VAT. These are not binding. However, it is to be hoped, that the Member States and their tax administrations will follow these guidelines. In this context, we would also like to draw your attention to our series of seminars on quick fixes, in which we address the various issues in detail. There are still places available for Frankfurt and Hamburg.