Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2005:89
Date: 2005-02-16
Language of the case: English
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Taxation;Value added tax
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: United Kingdom

Summary of the Judgment Tax provisions – Harmonisation of laws – Turnover taxes – Common system of value added tax – Supplies of goods or services effected by a taxable person acting as such (Council Directive 77/388, Arts 2(1), 4 and 5(1)) Transactions in which a taxable person established in a Member State buys goods from companies established in that Member State and sells them to purchasers established in another Member State, and which are not themselves vitiated by value added tax fraud, constitute supplies of goods or services effected by a taxable person acting as such and an economic activity within the meaning of Articles 2(1), 4 and 5(1) of Sixth Directive 77/388 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes where they fulfil the objective criteria on which the definitions of those terms are based, regardless of the intention of a trader other than the taxable person concerned involved in the same chain of supply and/or the possible fraudulent nature of another transaction in the chain, prior or subsequent to the transaction carried out by that taxable person, of which that taxable person had no knowledge and no means of knowledge. The right to deduct input value added tax of a taxable person who carries out such transactions cannot be affected by the fact that in the chain of supply of which those transactions form part another prior or subsequent transaction is vitiated by value added tax fraud, without that taxable person knowing or having any means of knowing. (see paras 51-52, 55, operative part)