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On February 28, 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judged in Case C-672/16, Imofloresmira — Investimentos Imobiliários SA versus Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (ECLI:EU:C:2018:134).
This request for, preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Articles 137, 167, 168, 184, 185 and 187 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1; ‘the VAT Directive’).
The request has been made in proceedings between Imofloresmira — Investimentos Imobiliários SA (‘Imofloresmira’) and the Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira (tax and customs authority, Portugal), concerning the adjustment of deductions of value added tax (VAT) made by Imofloresmira in the course of its activities of buying, selling, letting and managing immovable property.
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On February 28, 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judged in Case C-307/16, Stanisław Pieńkowski versus Dyrektor Izby Skarbowej w Lublinie (ECLI:EU:C:2018:124).
This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 131, Article 146(1)(b) and Articles 147 and 273 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1) (‘the VAT Directive’).
The request has been made in proceedings between Mr Stanisław Pieńkowski and the Dyrektor Izby Skarbowej w Lublinie (Director of the Tax Chamber, Lublin, Poland), concerning the exemption from value added tax (VAT) of the supply of goods dispatched outside the European Union in the personal luggage of travellers.
Read more: CJEU judges in Case C-307/16, Pieńkowski (VAT – Export exemptions)
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On February 28, 2018 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) judged in Case C-387/16, Valstybinė mokesčių inspekcija prie Lietuvos Respublikos finansų ministerijos versus Nidera BV, intervening party: Vilniaus apskrities valstybinė mokesčių inspekcija (ECLI:EU:C:2018:121).
The present request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 183 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1) (‘the VAT Directive’).
The request has been made in proceedings between the Valstybinė mokesčių inspekcija prie Lietuvos Respublikos finansų ministerijos (State Tax Inspectorate attached to the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania; ‘the State Tax Inspectorate’) and Nidera BV concerning the amount of default interest due in virtue of a late refund to Nidera BV of overpaid value added tax (VAT).
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On October 4, 2017 the European Commission announced that it had concluded that Luxembourg granted undue tax benefits to Amazon of around €250 million. According to the European Commission this is illegal under EU State aid rules because according to the European Commission it allowed Amazon to pay substantially less tax than other businesses. The European Commission ordered Luxembourg to recover the illegal aid. On February 26, 2018 the non-confidential version of the European Commission’s decision of October 4, 2017 was made available in the State Aid Register on the European Commission's competition website.
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On February 22, 2018 on the website of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) the opinion of Advocate General Bobek in the Case C-665/16, Minister Finansów versus Gmina Wrocław (ECLI:EU:C:2018:112) was published.
From introductory remarks made by the Advocate General
In Roman mythology, Janus was the God of beginnings and endings, of doorways, passages, gates, but in the pre-classical period apparently also of creation, war, water sources, and the sun. Beyond the (for an EU lawyer quite familiar) difficulties of competence attribution, which was always tricky for Roman gods whose powers kept changing over the centuries, there is one element about Janus that people still remember today: that he used to be depicted as having two faces.
In contrast to a god with one head and two faces, the present case concerns one face, but on two different heads. That is, in a nutshell, the source of the value added tax (VAT) controversy arising in this case: under Polish law, the Mayor of Wrocław has two distinct roles. On the one hand, he is the executive authority of the (self-administrative) Gmina Wrocław (Municipality of Wrocław, Poland). On the other hand, in the matters of (top-down) state administration, he also acts as the representative of the Public Treasury.
The dual function of some bodies of regional administration that are, depending on their specific tasks, acting either as self-administration or state administration, is nothing new, certainly in central Europe. What is, however, new in the context of the present case is how to evaluate that practice for VAT purposes in cases in which the same body, in casu the Mayor of Wrocław, appears in the specific scenario of expropriation of immovable property at both ends of the transaction, but acting in two different roles. Furthermore, following the formal transfer of the title of ownership from the Municipality of Wrocław to the Public Treasury, the property at issue in fact continues to be managed by the same authority: the Mayor of Wrocław.
It is in this context that the Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny (Supreme Administrative Court, Poland) seeks to ascertain whether the transfer from the Municipality of Wrocław to the Public Treasury of the ownership of the immovable property at issue constitutes a taxable transaction within the meaning of Article 14(2)(a) of the VAT Directive. This question raises two specific issues: First, in order to constitute a taxable transaction, does the transfer of the ownership of property under Article 14(2)(a) of the VAT Directive also need to amount to a transfer of the right to dispose ofproperty as an owner in the sense of Article 14(1) of that directive? Second, what is the relationship between the notion of compensation to which Article 14(2)(a) refers and the notion of consideration of Article 2(1)(a) of the directive?
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