Petroma Transports SA and Others v Belgian State.
Date: 2013-05-08
22. It should be noted at the outset that the right to deduct VAT is a fundamental principle of the common system of VAT which cannot be limited in principle and must be exercised immediately in respect of all the taxes charged on input transactions (see, to that effect, Case C‑285/11 Bonik  [2012] ECR I-0000, paragraphs 25 and 26 and the case-law cited).
23. The deduction system thus established is intended to relieve the trader entirely of the burden of the VAT payable or paid in the course of all his economic activities. The common system of VAT consequently ensures neutrality of taxation of all economic activities, whatever their purpose or results, provided that they are themselves subject in principle to VAT (see Case C‑137/02 Faxworld  [2004] ECR I‑5547, paragraph 37, and Case C‑438/09 Dankowski [2010] ECR I‑14009, paragraph 24).
24. It thus follows from Article 17(2) of the Sixth Directive that every taxable person is entitled to deduct the amounts invoiced as VAT for services rendered to him, in so far as such services are used for the purposes of his taxable transactions (see, to that effect, Case C‑74/08 PARAT Automotive Cabrio  [2009] ECR I‑3459, paragraph 17 and the case-law cited).
27. It follows that, with regard to the exercise of the right to deduct, the Sixth Directive does no more than require an invoice containing certain information, and Member States may provide for the inclusion of additional information to ensure the correct levying of VAT and to permit supervision by the tax authority (see, to that effect, Joined Cases 123/87 and 330/87 Jeunehomme and EGI  [1988] ECR 4517, paragraph 16).
28. However, the requirement that the invoice should contain particulars other than those set out in Article 22(3)(b) of the Sixth Directive, as a condition for the exercise of the right to deduct, must be limited to what is necessary to ensure the levying of VAT and to permit supervision by the tax authority. Moreover, such particulars must not, by reason of their number or technical nature, make the exercise of the right to deduct practically impossible or excessively difficult ( Jeunehomme and EGI , paragraph 17).
31. Moreover, although the Court, in Case C‑368/09 Pannon Gép Centrum  [2010] ECR I-7467, at paragraph 41, held that it is not open to Member States to make the exercise of the right to deduct VAT dependent on compliance with conditions relating to the content of invoices which are not expressly laid down by the provisions of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1), it should be noted that, in the case in the main proceedings, the provisions then in force allowed the Member States to lay down the criteria determining whether a document could be considered to constitute an invoice.
34. It should be noted that the common system of VAT does not prohibit the correction of incorrect invoices. Accordingly, where all of the material conditions required in order to benefit from the right to deduct VAT are satisfied and, before the tax authority concerned has made a decision, the taxable person has submitted a corrected invoice to that tax authority, the benefit of that right cannot, in principle, be refused on the ground that the original invoice contained an error (see, to that effect, Pannon Gép Centrum , paragraphs 43 to 45).
36. Consequently, the answer to the first question is that the provisions of the Sixth Directive must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, under which the right to deduct VAT may be refused to taxable persons who are recipients of services and are in possession of invoices which are incomplete, even if those invoices are supplemented by the provision of information seeking to prove the occurrence, nature and amount of the transactions invoiced after such a refusal decision was adopted.
The second question
40. The Court has consistently held that VAT is to be levied on all goods and services supplied for consideration by a taxable person (see, to that effect, Case C‑29/08 SKF  [2009] ECR I‑10413, paragraph 46 and the case-law cited).