argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: VAT exemption - real estate transactions - ancillary activity

On 6 February 2020, in case no. C-716/18, the lawyer of the E.U. Court of Justice, called to provide clarifications on the VAT exemption scheme for small businesses which provides that taxable persons with an annual turnover of less than a certain amount can be exempted from the VAT by the Member State, in its conclusions it found that it is not clear whether the legislation in the notion of ‘real estate transactions’ includes only real estate transactions or also the letting of immovable property exempt from tax. He, therefore, felt he had to give an extensive interpretation to the notion of exempt real estate transactions to be included in the calculation and, in line with the Commission’s opinion, also include exempt lease transactions. With regard to the requirement of “ancillary nature”, the Court of Justice has already ruled that an economic activity cannot qualify as ancillary if it constitutes the direct, permanent and necessary extension of the company’s taxable activity or involves a significant use of assets and services for which VAT is due. In the case in question, the lease of the property was not occasional or detached from the applicant’s actual taxable (consultancy) activity, since he himself used the property as the registered office for his taxable activity as administrator of insolvency proceedings. Therefore, there is no lease independent of the business activity and, consequently, the lease operation put in place had to be tax-free.