Case C-520/14, ECLI:EU:C:2016:334 – Gemeente Borsele; C-263/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:392 – Lajvér; C-11/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:470 – Český rozhlas on the concept of consideration for the supply of services and on the concept of economic activity by public bodies and entities receiving public funding

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Notes

1 Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, OJ L 347. Unless stipulated otherwise, all references to articles refer to the VAT Directive.

2 Pertinent CJEU cases are: 11 July 1985, Case 107/84, ECLI:EU:C:1985:332 – Commission/Germany; 26 March 1987, Case 235/85, ECLI:EU:C:1987:161 – Commission/Netherlands; 17 October 1989, Joined Cases 231/87 and 129/88, ECLI:EU:C:1989:381 – Comune di Carpaneto Piacentino I; 15 May 1990, Case C-4/89, ECLI:EU:C:1990:204 – Comune di Carpaneto Piacentino II; 25 July 1991, Case C-202/90, ECLI:EU:C:1991:332 – Ayuntamiento de Sevilla; 6 February 1997, Case C-247/95, ECLI:EU:C:1997:57 – Marktgemeinde Welden; 12 September 2000, Case C-358/97, ECLI:EU:C:2000:425 – Commission/Ireland; 12 September 2000, Case C-359/97, ECLI:EU:C:2000:426 – Commission/United Kingdom; 14 December 2000, Case C-446/98, ECLI:EU:C:2000:691 – Câmara Municipal do Porto; 8 March 2001, Case C-276/98, ECLI:EU:C:2001:133 – Commission/Portugal; 8 June 2006, Case C-430/04, ECLI:EU:C:2006:374 – Feuerbestattungsverein Halle; 5 October 2006, Case C-408/06, ECLI:EU:C:2007:789 – Götz; 3 April 2008, Case C-442/05, ECLI:EU:C:2008:184 – Zweckverband Torgau; 12 May 2008, Case C-462/05, ECLI:EU:C:2008:337 – Commission/Portugal; 21 May 2008, Case C-456/07, ECLI:EU:C:2008:293 – Mihal; 16 August 2008, Case C-288/07, ECLI:EU:C:2008:505 – Isle of Wight Council; 4 June 2009, C-120/08, ECLI:EU:C:2009:345 – Salix; 16 July 2009, Case C-554/07, ECLI:EU:C:2009:464 – Commission/Ireland; 25 March 2010, Case C-79/09, ECLI:EU:C:2010:171 – Commission/Netherlands; 20 March 2014, Case C-72/13, ECLI:EU:C:2014:197 – Gmina Wrocław I; 29 September 2015, Case 276/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:635 – Gmina Wrocław II; 29 October 2015, Case C-174/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:733 – Saudaçor; 12 May 2016, Case C-520/14, ECLI:EU:C:2016:334 – Gemeente Borsele; 22 June 2016, Case C-267/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:466 – Gemeente Woerden; 22 June 2016, Case C-11/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:470 – Český rozhlas.

3 On this see e.g. Michel Aujean, Peter Jenkins and Satya Poddar, A New Approach to Public Sector Bodies, (1999) 10 VAT Monitor 144; Rita de la Feria, The EU VAT Treatment of Public Sector Bodies: Slowly Moving in the Wrong Direction, (2009) 37 Intertax 148; Alan Schenk, Victor Thuronyi and Wei Cui, Value Added Tax – A Comparative Approach (2nd ed. 2015), pp. 285 et seq.; as well as in German Marc Desens and David Hummel, Umsatzsteuerdefinitivbelastungen bei Körperschaften des öffentlichen Rechts: Wirkungen – Verfassungsrechtliche Würdigung – Reformvorschläge, (2012) 88 Steuer und Wirtschaft 225; Joachim Englisch, Umsatzsteuerpflicht bei interkommunaler Kooperation, (2013) 62 Umsatzsteuerrundschau 570; Oskar Henkow, The VAT/GST Treatment of Public Bodies, Alphen aan den Rijn, Wolters Kluwer, (2013); Roland Ismer and Stefanie Baur-Rückert, Die Besteuerung der öffentlichen Hand im Spannungsfeld zwischen unionaler Rationalität und mitgliedstaatlicher Freiheit, (2016) 4 Mehrwertsteuerrecht, 740. On the underlying policy issues, see e.g. Copenhagen Economics, VAT in the Public Sector and Exemptions in the Public Interest (2011, available at http://econpapers.repec.org/paper/taxtaxstu/0045.htm).

4 On the cumulative application of the two criteria see e.g. CJEU 11 July 1985, Case 107/84, ECLI:EU:C:1985:332 – Commission/Germany; 17 October 1989, Joined Cases 231/87 and 129/88, ECLI:EU:C:1989:381 – Comune di Carpaneto Piacentino I, at para 12.

5 On this see e.g. CJEU 29 October 2015, Case C-174/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:733 – Saudaçor.

6 CJEU 12 May, 2016, Case C-520/14, ECLI:EU:C:2016:334 – Gemeente Borsele, at paras 21 et seq.

7 CJEU, ibid, at paras 28 et seq.

8 CJEU, ibid, at para 34.

9 CJEU, ibid, at para 35.

10 Opinion 23 December, 2015, Case C-520/14, ECLI:EU:C:2015:855.

11 Cf. Opinion, ibid, at para 50: “it may be said that, on the one hand, it is true that, where consideration within the meaning of the chargeable events defined in Article 2(1) of the VAT Directive is not sought, no economic activity is present, since no income is obtained from that activity as the second sentence of the second subparagraph of Article 9(1) of the VAT Directive requires. On the other hand, however, as the Court has consistently held, the fact that a taxable person seeks in connection with an activity consideration within the meaning of the definition of the events chargeable to VAT is not sufficient for a finding, required by Article 9(1) of the VAT Directive, that its activity is also carried out for the purposes of obtaining income or, therefore, to support the assumption that an economic activity is present.” [Italics in the original.] While the fact that the municipality had provided the service at a price below its own costs did not hinder the assumption of a consideration (cf ibid, at para 54, thus reconciling the decision with the previous ruling in Hotel Scandic Gåsabäck (C-412/03, EU:C:2005:47)), the activity did not serve the purposes of obtaining income, which in her eyes demanded market participation as an additional unwritten requirement (ibid, at paras 61 et seq.).

12 Opinion, ibid, at para 68.

13 Opinion, ibid, at para 69: “After all, if the organisation of school transport by the municipality, for which the latter uses external transport undertakings, were subject to VAT, the deduction of input tax would mean that VAT would ultimately be charged only on the basis of assessment formed by the contributions payable by the parents. These, however, represent only a small fraction of the market price for those transport services, since, in total, the contributions make up only 3% of the costs incurred in connection with the provision of transport services by external providers. The final consumption of those transport services would end up being largely exempt from VAT. In order to prevent this from happening and to ensure that the transport services are subject to VAT at their market price, final taxation must take place at the stage the municipality receives those services. This presupposes that the organisation of school transport by the municipality does not constitute an economic activity.”

14 CJEU 29 February 1996, Case C-110/94, ECLI:EU:C:1996:67 – INZO.

15 CJEU 26 September 1996, C-230/94, ECLI:EU:C:1996:352 – Enkler. This case was about the acquisition of a motor caravan which was hired out mainly to the husband of the taxable person.

16 CJEU 29 October 2009, Case C-246/08, ECLI: EU:C:2009:671 – Commission/Finland.

17 CJEU 20 January 2005, Case C-412/03, ECLI:EU:C:2005:47 – Hotel Scandic Gåsabäck.

18 On the question of the precedential value of previous decisions see e.g. Gunnar Beck, The Legal Reasoning of the Court of Justice of the EU, Oxford et al., Hart (2013); Marc Jacob, Precedents and Case-Based Reasoning in the European Court of Justice: Unfinished Business, Cambridge/UK, Cambridge University Press (2014).

19 CJEU 2 June 2016, Case C-263/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:392 – Lajvér, at para 29.

20 CJEU, ibid, at para 26.

21 CJEU ibid, at paras 42 et seq. But see the qualification at para 49: it is for the referring court to verify that the fee to be charged by Lajvér does not “only partly remunerate the services supplied or to be supplied and that its amount has not been determined as a result of other possible factors that could, depending on the circumstances, call into question the direct link between the services supplied and the consideration.”

22 CJEU 2 June 2016, Case C-263/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:392 – Lajvér, Rn. 50.

23 Respectively, Article 13A(1)(q) of the Sixth Directive.

24 This requirement goes back to CJEU 3 March 1994, Case C-16/93, ECLI:EU:C:1994:80 – Tolsma.

25 CJEU 22 June 2016, Case C-11/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:470 – Český rozhlas, at paras 21 et seq.

26 CJEU, ibid, at paras 23 et seq.

27 CJEU, ibid, at paras 25 et seq.

28 CJEU, ibid, at paras 32 et seq.

29 Previous cases decided by CJEU include CJEU 26 June 2007, Case C-284/04, ECLI:EU:C:2007:381 – T-Mobile Austria et al; 26 October 2009, Case C-267/08, ECLI:EU:C:2009:619 – SPÖ Landesorganisation Kärnten; 29 October 2009, Case C-246/08, ECLI: EU:C:2009:671 – Commission/Finland. See also the lead case CJEU 26 September 1996, C-230/94, ECLI:EU:C:1996:352 – Enkler, which had not been rendered in the context of taxation of public bodies. It is, however, highly doubtful whether the ruling (29 May 2015, Case 13/02651, ECLI:NL:PHR:2014:482, at 4.1.4), whereby the Hoge Raad der Nederlanden referred the case 22 June 2016, Case C-267/15, ECLI:EU:C:2016:466 – Gemeente Woerden to the CJEU is in line with this case law. The Hoge Raad took for granted that the Gemeente Woerden carried on an economic activity when it sold the buildings on for a consideration far below market price. The Hoge Raad therefore only referred the question whether the sales constituted a transaction in the sense of Article 2. Applying the Gemeente Borsele principles would, however, have led to the conclusion that there was no economic activity. Although it could have gone beyond the questions referred to it, the CJEU chose not to do so. Yet the Commission could and should seek to investigate this breach of their obligations by the Netherlands through an infringement procedure under Article TFEU.

30 See Article 20(5) of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union: “Where it considers that the case raises no new point of law, the Court may decide, after hearing the Advocate General, that the case shall be determined without a submission from the Advocate General.”

31 This liberty extends to Article 13, see Roland Ismer and Stefanie Baur-Rückert (n. 3) (2016) 2 Mehrwertsteuerrecht, 740.

32 Gemeente Borsele was decided by the Fifth Chamber, Lajvér by the Eighth Chamber and Český rozhlas by the First Chamber. Gemeente Woerden was decided by the Tenth Chamber, but had the same rapporteur as Gemeente Borsele.