Umsatzsteuer Newsletter

Search

Umsatzsteuer Newsletter 36/2018
Federal Fiscal Court: Postal address on invoice permitted – no bad faith despite domicile address
In an invoice issued for the purpose of input VAT deduction, the supplier’s address is not required to be the place of his or her economic activity. This was decided by the German Federal Fiscal Court in two judgments of 21 June 2018 (V R 25/15 and V R 28/16). The German Federal Fiscal Court thus follows the ECJ in the German rulings in Geissel and Butin – C-374/16 and C-375/16. It is sufficient if the supplier can be reached at the given address. It is also sufficient, for example, to provide the address of a law firm which is also the domicile of other companies. Moreover, the fact that there is a domicile address of the supplier does not justify accusations of bad faith on the part of the recipient. Despite VAT fraud in the supply chain, the German Federal Fiscal Court granted input VAT deduction in the proceedings V R 28/16. The tax office is required to prove knowledge of tax evasion or knowledge of facts which should have alerted the recipient to the existence thereof, which was not the case here.
mehr
Umsatzsteuer Newsletter 35/2018
Procurement of services by undisclosed agents increasingly VAT-exempt
According to a recent Federal Fiscal Court decision (XI R 16/16 of 25.04.2018), with regard to commissionaire structures personal VAT-exemptions also apply to the procurement of services by the undisclosed agent. Thus, the Federal Fiscal Court contradicts the fiscal authority’s current view. The decision results in changes, which will apply to all undisclosed agents procuring VAT-exempt supplies. They now need to check whether they are required to invoice without VAT in the future and whether VAT refunds can be applied for past transactions.
mehr
Umsatzsteuer Newsletter 34/2018
Correction of VAT liability in accordance with sec 14c para 1 requires repayment of the VAT
According to the Federal Fiscal Court, (decision of 16.05.2018 – XI R 28/16), any correction of VAT liability in accordance with sec 14c para 1 sentence 2 of the German VAT Act (= sec. 203 of the VAT Directive) requires, in addition to the correction of the invoice, that the supplier has paid back the wrongfully invoiced VAT amount to the customer. In the absence of such a repayment, the supplier would be unjustly enriched. For taxable persons this means that they often have to pre-finance the respective VAT amount. Further, they may declare the correction of their VAT liability to the tax office only during the reporting period of the repayment not earlier. However, there are still likely to be constellations where a repayment to the customer is irrelevant.
mehr

Pages