EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM

Pursuant to Article 395(1) of Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (‘the VAT Directive’), the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, may authorise any Member State to apply special measures for derogation from the provisions of that Directive, in order to simplify the procedure for collecting VAT or to prevent certain forms of tax evasion or avoidance.

By letter registered with the Commission on 10 September 2018, the Federal Republic of Germany (hereinafter Germany) requested the authorisation to continue to apply a measure derogating from Articles 168 and 168a of the VAT Directive, to exclude from the right of deduction the VAT borne on goods and services which are used for more than 90 % by the taxable person for his private use or for that of his employees, or in general, for non-business purposes or non-economic activities. The request was accompanied by a report on the application of this measure as required by Article 2 of Council Decision 2009/791/EC of 20 October 2009 as amended by Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/2428 of 10 December 2015.

In accordance with Article 395(2) of the VAT Directive, the Commission informed the other Member States by letters dated 14 September 2018 of the request made by Germany. By letter dated 17 September 2018, the Commission notified Germany that it had all the information necessary to consider the request.

1.CONTEXT OF THE PROPOSAL

•Reasons for and objectives of the proposal

Article 168 of the VAT Directive provides that a taxable person is entitled to deduct the VAT charged on purchases made and services received for the purpose of his taxed transactions. Article 168a(1) of the VAT Directive provides that the VAT on expenditure related to immovable property forming part of the business assets of a taxable person and used both for business and non-business purposes shall be deductible only up to the proportion of the property's use for purposes of the taxable person's business. Pursuant to Article 168a(2) of the VAT Directive Member States may also apply this rule in relation to expenditure related to other goods forming part of the business assets as they specify. Pursuant to Article 395 of the VAT Directive, Member States may apply measures derogating from the provisions of the VAT Directive to simplify the procedure for collecting VAT or to prevent certain forms of tax evasion or avoidance if they have been authorised by the Council. Germany requested to continue to apply a derogating measure allowing it to entirely exclude from the right of deduction the VAT borne on goods and services that are used by a taxable person for more than 90 % for private or non-business purposes, including non-economic activities. This derogating measure for Germany had initially been granted by Council Decision 2000/186/EC of 28 February 2000 for a period until 31 December 2002 and was again granted by Council Decision 2003/354/EC of 13 May 2003 for a period until 30 June 2004, by Council Decision 2004/817/EC of 19 November 2004 for a period until 31 December 2009 and by Council Decision 2009/791/EC of 20 October 2009 for a period until 31 December 2012. The latter has been prolonged until 31 December 2015 by Council Implementing Decision 2012/705/EU of 13 November 2012 and until 31 December 2018 by Council Implementing Decision (EU) 2015/2428 of 10 December 2015. In its current request, Germany informed the Commission that the application of the derogating measure has proven to be very effective and constitutes a major simplification for the collection of VAT. It also helps to prevent tax evasion and avoidance. The requested minimal use of goods for at least 10 % for business purposes in order to allow to deduct input VAT is relatively low. According to Germany, the prolongation of this measure will therefore only have little impact on the total amount of VAT revenue collected at the final stage of consumption and thus, does not affect the Union's VAT own resources in a negative way. According to Germany, the measure reduces administrative burdens for taxpayers and tax administrations, because the ratio of the use of such goods for business and non-business purposes does not have to be monitored nor adapted and therefore no records have to be kept on these changes. The 10 % limit also corresponds to what is foreseen in the German income tax legislation, which provides that only goods that are used for at least 10 % for business purposes can be regarded as business assets.

Derogations are in general granted for a limited time as to allow an assessment whether the special measure is appropriate and effective. In this respect, based on the information provided by Germany, the Commission understands that the 10 %/90 % apportionment between business and non-business use still represents a sound basis to sort out transactions in respect of which the business use can be considered as negligible.

As a consequence, the special measure in question provides a facilitation for both tax administrations and businesses as there is no need for any monitoring of the subsequent use of the goods and services to which the exclusion from deduction applied at the time of their acquisition, particularly with respect to a possible taxation of private use pursuant to Articles 16 or 26 of the VAT Directive or adjustments to the deduction as required under Articles 184 – 192 of that Directive. An extension of the derogating measure is therefore appropriate.

However, any extension should be limited in time in order to assess whether the conditions, on which the derogation is based, would still be valid. Therefore, it is proposed to extend the derogation until the end of 2021 and to request Germany to present, together with the extension request, a report by 31 March 2021 at the latest including a review of the applied apportionment rate between business and non-business use on which the exclusion from deduction is based in case a further extension would be envisaged beyond 2021.

•Consistency with existing policy provisions in the policy area

Article 176 of the VAT Directive stipulates that the Council shall determine the expenditure on which the VAT is not deductible. Until such time, it authorises Member States to maintain exclusions, which were in place on 1 January 1979. There are therefore a number of "stand still" provisions restricting the right to deduct for taxable persons.