In its letter of 27.05.2019, the Federal Ministry of Finance comments on the VAT treatment of prize money and restricts the scope of the application of the principles established by the ECJ in the Baštová case. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between placement-dependent and placement-independent prize money. Hence, participants in such competitions are required to make a split of the prize money in future.

On 15 May 2019, the European Court of Justice published a ruling in the case of Vega International. This case is likely to, once again, create considerable uncertainty regarding the VAT treatment of fuel supplies carried out using fuel cards. The uncertainty arising from the ECJ ruling in the case Auto Lease Holland in 2003 has thus been revived. The ECJ has reclassified the supplies and now regards this form of transaction as a granting of credit instead of a supply of goods. Not only oil companies, fuel card issuers and their customers, such as logistics and leasing companies, are affected. Companies active in the loading of electric vehicles and in other comparable business models must now also consider what this new ECJ judgement means for them.

Warnings issued pursuant to copyright law are subject to VAT. This was decided by the Federal Fiscal Court in its decision of 13.02.2019 - XI R 1/17. The Court found that a warning given by a copyright holder to an infringer constitutes a taxable supply. In the Federal Fiscal Court’s view, a supply exists in the fact that the warning party gives the warned party the opportunity to avoid a legal dispute. The amount of reimbursement paid by the warned party is the remuneration for the supply. The decision raises follow-up questions. It is also important for other areas of intellectual property, e.g. trademark law.