Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2018:84
Date: 2018-02-21
Language of the case: German
Court formation: Ninth Chamber
Subject matter: Taxation;Value added tax
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling;Reference for a preliminary ruling - decision unnecessary
Origin: Austria

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Ninth Chamber), 21 February 2018 1. Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Supply of goods — Determination of the place of supply of goods in the case of dispatch or transport — First paragraph of Article 32 of Directive 2006/112 — Scope — Two successive supplies of the same goods which gave rise to only one intra-Community transport — First supply — Not included — Second supply — Included (Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 32, first para.) 2. Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Origin and scope of the right to deduct — Intra-Community supply of goods — Incorrect classification of that supply — Purchaser of those goods wrongly claiming a right to deduct — No right to deduct — Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations — Irrelevant 1. In circumstances such as those in the main proceedings, the first paragraph of Article 32 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as to the second of two successive supplies of the same goods which gave rise to only one intra-Community transport. (see para. 38, operative part 1) 2. Where the second supply in a chain of two successive supplies involving a single intra-Community transport is an intra-Community supply, the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations must be interpreted as meaning that the person ultimately acquiring the goods, who wrongly claimed a right to deduct input value added tax, may not deduct, as input value added tax, the value added tax paid to the supplier solely on the basis of the invoices provided by the intermediary operator which incorrectly classified its supply. The right to deduct VAT can be exercised only in respect of taxes actually due and cannot be extended to overpaid input VAT (see, by analogy, judgment of 14 June 2017, Compass Contract Services, C‑38/16, EU:C:2017:454, paragraphs 35 and 36). It follows that the exercise of that right does not extend to VAT which is due exclusively because it features on an invoice (see, to that effect, judgments of 13 December 1989, Genius, C‑342/87, EU:C:1989:635, paragraph 19, and of 6 November 2003, Karageorgou and Others, C‑78/02 to C‑80/02, EU:C:2003:604, paragraph 51). In that regard, it must be noted that the right to rely on the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations extends to any person in a situation in which an administrative authority has caused that person to entertain expectations which are justified by precise assurances provided to him (judgment of 9 July 2015, Salomie and Oltean, C‑183/14, EU:C:2015:454, paragraph 44 and the case-law cited). (see paras 43, 46, 49, operative part 2)