It was alleged that a provision limiting the identity of those who could claim a VAT repayment offended against the principle of equivalence because there was no comparable restriction in relation to the recovery of overpaid direct tax.
Held: Advocate General Sharpston agreed with the following submission of the Commission: ‘In general . . a situation in that (direct tax) field is unlikely to be comparable to that in the field of VAT. In the latter it is in principle only the supplier who is in a direct legal relationship with the tax authority. Indeed, the whole system of direct taxation is unrelated to that of VAT. Since the principle of non-discrimination concerns only comparable situations, it is thus not relevant here.’
In its judgment, the Court adopted the more general part of the Commission’s argument: ‘In the present case, the system of direct taxation, as a whole, is not related to the VAT system.’
Accordingly, the Court concluded that none of the EU anti-discriminatory principles, including the principle of equivalence, were engaged by the comparison between VAT and direct taxation.
Advocate General Sharpston
C-35/05, [2006] EUECJ C-35/05, [2007] ECR I-2452
Bailii
European
Cited by:
Cited – Totel Ltd v Revenue and Customs SC 26-Jul-2018
The taxpayer challenged the ‘pay first’ rule under VAT which required them, before challenging a VAT assessment, first to deposit the VAT said to be due under the assessment.
Held: The appeal failed. There had not been shown any true . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 11 August 2021; Ref: scu.408729
