argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: Vat - exemption - extra-eu export

On 17 October 2019, in case C-653/18, the EU Court of Justice provided clarifications in the context of a dispute concerning the denial of exemption from VAT for exports of goods outside the European Union carried out in 2007. The dispute concerned a Polish company that had sold mobile phones to two Ukrainian entities. Following an investigation, the tax administration had ascertained that the procedure for exporting these mobile phones outside the territory of the Union had been carried out, but that the assets in question had been purchased not by the institutions mentioned in the invoices, but by other entities that had not been identified. The administration had therefore considered that no disposal of assets had taken place and that, therefore, the company was not entitled to apply the VAT rate of 0%. The Court ruled that the national rule denying the existence of a supply of goods and consequently denying the benefit of the VAT exemption if the goods concerned were exported outside the European Union and subsequently exported to the EU are contrary to European legislation. Tax authorities have established that the purchaser of the same goods was not already the subject mentioned in the invoice prepared by the taxable person, but a different entity that has not been identified. In such circumstances, the benefit of the VAT exemption must be denied if the absence of identification of the actual purchaser prevents one from proving that the transaction in question constitutes a supply of goods, pursuant to the same provision, or if it is shown that the taxable person knew or ought to have known that the transaction in question fell within the scope of a fraud committed against the common VAT system.