Case C-73/23, Chaudfontaine Loisirs: Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 12 September 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal de première instance de Liège – Belgium) – Chaudfontaine Loisirs SA v État belge, represented by the Minister of Finance (Reference for a preliminary ruling – Taxation – Common system of value added tax (VAT) – Directive 2006/112/EC – Article 135(1)(i) – Exemptions – Betting, lotteries and other forms of gambling – Conditions and limits – Principle of fiscal neutrality – Maintenance of the effects of a piece of national legislation – Entitlement to refund – Unjust enrichment)
Date: 2024-09-12
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: VAT, equal treatment, game of chance, online game, primacy of EU law, tax exemption, tax rebate, taxpayer








C_202406228EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/6228


28.10.2024






Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 12 September 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal de première instance de Liège – Belgium) – Chaudfontaine Loisirs SA v État belge, represented by the Minister of Finance


(Case C-73/23,
                (1)
Chaudfontaine Loisirs)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Taxation - Common system of value added tax (VAT) - Directive 2006/112/EC - Article 135(1)(i) - Exemptions - Betting, lotteries and other forms of gambling - Conditions and limits - Principle of fiscal neutrality - Maintenance of the effects of a piece of national legislation - Entitlement to refund - Unjust enrichment)
(C/2024/6228)
Language of the case: French

Referring court

Tribunal de première instance de Liège

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant: Chaudfontaine Loisirs SA

Defendant: État belge (SPF Finances)

Interested party: État belge (SPF Justice)

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 135(1)(i) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, read in conjunction with the principle of fiscal neutrality,
must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which differentiates between, on the one hand, the purchase of lottery tickets and participation in other forms of gambling offered offline and, on the other hand, participation in forms of gambling other than lotteries offered online, by excluding the latter from the value added tax exemption applicable to the former, provided that the objective differences between those categories of gambling are liable to have a considerable influence on the decision of the average consumer to use one or other of those categories of games.










2.


The principle of sincere cooperation as enshrined in Article 4(3) TEU and the principle of the primacy of EU law require the national court to disapply the national provisions held to be incompatible with Article 135(1)(i) of Directive 2006/112, read in conjunction with the principle of fiscal neutrality, the existence of a judgment of the national constitutional court deciding to maintain the effects of those national provisions being irrelevant in that regard.










3.


The rules of EU law on the recovery of amounts wrongly paid must be interpreted as meaning that they confer on a taxable person a right to a refund of the amount of the value added tax collected in a Member State in breach of Article 135(1)(i) of Directive 2006/112, provided that that refund does not entail the unjust enrichment of that taxable person.






(1)  
            OJ C 164, 8.5.2023.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/6228/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)