CJEU - Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2022

S. 229Comments on the four flavours of the place of supply in EU VAT

Peter Sanderson

1. Introduction

In her paper, Madeleine Merkx addresses “number acquisitions” under Art. 41 of the VAT Directive and the CJEU decision in B. Number acquisitions are an especially unusual concept in the context of the VAT Directive. The application of Art. 41 in effect alters the place of supply of an intra-community acquisition of goods and assigns this not to the Member State of arrival, but to the Member State of the VAT registration number that the customer has provided. The place of taxation under Art. 41 is therefore somewhat arbitrary and especially so since a business could be VAT registered in multiple Member States – and may, in error or otherwise, have provided any one of its many EU VAT registration numbers to the supplier.

2. Number acquisitions only apply where there has been an error

It is first worth noting that Art. 41 is only applicable where there has been an error in VAT accounting on an intra-community supply of goods. If looking at the specific supply chain at hand in B., the established facts in the case are that there had been an intra-community supply of goods from Poland to other EU M...