From: news@paragraf.nbg.sub.org
Newsgroups: de.soc.recht
Subject: JUS 9241.7.3 Taxation, Finance          
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 17:31:54 +0100
Organization: VDJ Nuernberg

ENR   : 2514
HD    : 7. Taxation, Monetary Policy, Finance
TI    : Judgment of the Court of Justice - VAT - travel agencies
RF    : JUS 9241.7.3
AB    : Article 26 of the 6th Directive 77/388/EEC (common VAT system;
        uniform tax base) defines a particular VAT scheme applicable to
        travel agencies and tour organizers. The Gerechtshof of Amsterdam
        referred to the Court of Justice for preliminary rulings on the
        following questions in the context of a suit opposing a tour
        organizer and the tax inspection:
         1. Can operations carried out by a taxable person, consisting of
        renting holiday accommodations to persons who provide
        transportation themselves to the place of accommodation, for which
        the taxable person has concluded agreements with third parties to
        dispose of these holiday accommodations, be considered as
        organizing a trip in the meaning of Article 26 (1) of the sixth
        Directive, or as operations carried out to organize a trip in the
        meaning of paragraph 2 of that article? 2) Is the answer to the above
        question different in the case when the taxable person is a tour
        organizer and, in addition to effecting the operations mentioned
        above, also organizes travel including transport to the destination
        or from the accommodations? To answer the first question, the Court
        had to determine whether Article 26 is applicable when the
        transportation of the traveller to and from the place of
        accommodation is not handled by the travel agency, which simply
        provides the holiday accommodations to the traveller. The Court
        answered affirmatively to this question. According to the Court,
        Article 26 (1) of the sixth VAT directive does not contain provisions
        expressly stipulating that for the application of the particular VAT
        scheme defined in Article 26, transportation of the traveller to
        destination and from the place of accommodation need be ensured by
        the travel agency. The Court added that excluding services provided
        by a travel agency from Article 26 of the sixth directive on the
        grounds that they are limited to accommodations only and do not
        include the traveller's trip, would lead to a complex tax scheme in
        which the rules applied with regard to VAT would depend on the
        elements included in the services offered to each traveller. In the
        Court's opinion, this kind of scheme would be contrary to the
        objectives of the directive. With regard to the second question, the
        Court recalled that the terms of Article 26 of the sixth directive
        apply indifferently to travel agencies and tour organizers. These
        considerations led the Court of Justice to the conclusion, in reply
        to the national court, that Article 26 of the six directive
        77/388/EEC must be interpreted to mean that the fact that the
        transportation of the traveller is not organized by a travel agency
        or by a tour organizer and that these parties simply provide the
        traveller with a holiday accommodations does not exclude the services
        provided by these companies from the scope of Article 26. Judgment of
        the Court of Justice of 12 November 1992, case C-163/91 Van Ginkel,
        not yet published.
CT    : Finance; Budget
DT    : 921204