Case C‑208/15

Stock ‘94 Szolgáltató Zrt.

v

Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Dél-dunántúli Regionális Adó Főigazgatósága

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Kúria)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax — Directive 2006/112/EC — Integrated cooperation — Grant of financing and supplies of current assets necessary for agricultural production — Single, complex supply — Distinct and independent supplies — Ancillary supply and principal supply)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber), 8 December 2016

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Supply of goods — Supply of services — Transactions comprising several elements — Grant of a loan used to purchase agricultural goods and supply of those goods within integrated agricultural cooperation — Transaction which may be regarded as a single supply — Assessment by the national court

(Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 1(2))

Directive 2006/112 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as meaning that:

– an integrated agricultural cooperation providing that an economic operator delivers goods to a farmer and grants him a loan intended for purchasing those goods constitutes a single transaction for the purposes of that directive, in which the supply of the goods is the principal supply. The taxable amount of that single transaction is made up of both the price of those goods and the interest paid on the loans granted to the farmers;

– the fact that an integrator may provide the farmers with additional services or buy their agricultural production has no bearing on the categorisation of the transaction at issue as a single transaction, for the purposes of Directive 2006/112.

In the first place, since the integrated cooperation is governed by the principle according to which the integrator grants a loan to an integrated producer, which that producer may use only to purchase current assets from the integrator, the grant of such loans does not constitute a supply with an independent interest from the perspective of integrated producers, inasmuch as those financial resources cannot be used freely. In the second place, not having authorisation to act as a credit institution, the integrator cannot grant loans to the integrated producers without their being intended for the purchase of its current assets. In the third place, the delivery of the current assets and the loan pursue the same economic objective, namely, in essence, the creation of financial and logistical support for farmers, enabling them to carry on agricultural production activity. In the third place, the delivery of the current assets and the loan pursue the same economic objective, namely, in essence, the creation of financial and logistical support for farmers, enabling them to carry on agricultural production activity. In such circumstances, the supply of those current assets constitutes, for the integrated producers, the principal supply within the integrated cooperation, inasmuch as the farmers will be able to pursue their agricultural activity because of those assets. Thus, for those farmers, obtaining a loan to acquire those assets is not an end in itself, but merely a means for them to acquire the current assets necessary for their agricultural production.

In that regard, it is for the referring court to ascertain whether the integrated cooperation actually represents that economic objective, and to establish whether the delivery of the current assets is of such fundamental importance for the integrated producers. If that should prove to be the case, the supply of the current assets and the grant of a loan intended for purchasing those assets are to be regarded as constituting a single complex transaction for the purposes of value added tax, the principal supply being the supply of those assets.

Last, in the fourth place, the fact that an integrator may opt to provide additional services to the integrated producers and purchase their agricultural production has no bearing on that finding.

(see paras 31-39, operative part)