Argos Distributors Ltd v Commissioners of Customs & Excise.
Date: 1996-10-24
16 According to the Court' s settled case-law, the taxable amount for the supply of goods or services is represented by the consideration actually received for them. That consideration is thus the subjective value, that is to say, the value actually received, in each specific case, and not a value estimated according to objective criteria (see Case 154/80 Staatssecretaris Van Financiën v Cooperatieve Aardappelenbewaarplats [1981] ECR 445; Case 230/87 Naturally Yours Cosmetics [1988] ECR 6365; Case C-126/88 Boots v Commissioners of Customs and Excise [1990] ECR I-1235; and Case C-38/93 Glawe [1994] ECR I-1679).
17 According to the same case-law, that consideration, when not consisting of money, must be capable of being expressed in money (Cooperatieve Aardappelenbewaarplats and Naturally Yours Cosmetics, cited above).
18 In this case, the subjective consideration actually received by Argos for the sale of its goods is constituted wholly or in part by the vouchers presented by the buyer of the goods. Since Argos regards the voucher as representing such part of the catalogue price as is equal to its face value, the only question is as to the actual money equivalent of the voucher taken in payment by Argos.
19 According to the terms of the transaction which involves the initial purchase of the voucher, that voucher, by its nature, is no more than a document evidencing the obligation assumed by Argos to accept the voucher, instead of money, at its face value (see, to that effect, Boots Company, cited above, paragraph 21).
20 In order to ascertain the actual money equivalent accruing to Argos when it takes a voucher in payment, regard must be had only to the transaction which is relevant in that regard, namely the initial transaction comprising the sale of the voucher, at a discount or otherwise. In view of the nature of that transaction, the actual money equivalent which the voucher represents for Argos, when the latter accepts it in payment, is the sum of money which it received upon the sale of the voucher, namely its face value less any discount allowed.
21 The fact that a buyer of Argos goods does not know the real money equivalent of the voucher used by him is irrelevant: the important issue in this case is to determine the actual money equivalent received by Argos when it accepts vouchers in payment for its goods, since only that actual equivalent can constitute the taxable amount.
22 This interpretation is not invalidated by the fact that, in each transaction, the details of what Argos receives as consideration for the supply of goods are unknown. In that connection, it must be emphasized that in this case the burden of proof falls on the supplier. Argos claims, without having been contradicted, that as a result of the serial number appearing on each voucher, it is possible, when the voucher is presented in a shop, to identify the initial purchaser and to determine any discount allowed to him. Thus, it is not difficult to ascertain what proportion of Argos' s total receipts is represented by the vouchers received (see, to that effect, Glawe, cited above).
23 The answer to the third question must therefore be that Article 11(A)(1)(a) of the Sixth Directive is to be interpreted as meaning that, when a supplier has sold a voucher to a buyer at a discount and promised subsequently to accept that voucher at its face value in full or part payment of the price of goods purchased by a customer who was not the buyer of the voucher, and who does not normally know the actual price at which the voucher was sold by the supplier, the consideration represented by the voucher is the sum actually received by the supplier upon the sale of the voucher.
The other questions