Minister Finansów v RR Donnelley Global Turnkey Solutions Poland sp. z o.o.
Date: 2013-06-27
20. According to the Court’s case-law, in certain circumstances several formally distinct services, which could be supplied separately and thus give rise, in turn, to taxation or exemption, must be considered to be a single transaction when they are not independent (Case C‑425/06 Part Service  [2008] ECR I‑897, paragraph 51, and Case C‑392/11 Field Fisher Waterhouse  [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 15).
21. In this context, the Court has held that a supply must be regarded as a single supply where two or more elements or acts supplied by the taxable person are so closely linked that they form, objectively, a single, indivisible economic supply, which it would be artificial to split (see, to that effect, Case C‑41/04 Levob Verzekeringen and OV Bank  [2005] ECR I‑9433, paragraph 22, and Field Fisher Waterhouse , paragraph 16).
22. That is also the case where one or more supplies constitute a principal supply and the other supply or supplies constitute one or more ancillary supplies which share the tax treatment of the principal supply. In particular, a supply must be regarded as ancillary to a principal supply if it does not constitute for customers an end in itself but a means of better enjoying the principal service supplied (see, to that effect, Case C‑349/96 CPP  [1999] ECR I‑973, paragraph 30; Joined Cases C‑497/09, C‑499/09, C‑501/09 and C‑502/09 Bog and Others  [2011] ECR I‑1457, paragraph 54; and Field Fisher Waterhouse , paragraph 17).
23. Although it is for the national court to determine whether the taxable person supplies a single service in a particular case and to make all definitive findings of fact in that regard, the Court may, however, provide it with any guidance as to interpretation that will be helpful to it in disposing of the case (see, to that effect, Levob Verzekeringen and OV Bank , paragraph 23, and Case C‑334/10 X  [2012] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 24).
29. Accordingly, before being able to decide whether, in a given situation, a specific service supplied comes within Articles 44 and 45 of the VAT Directive, which set out general rules, it is necessary to deal with the question whether that situation is governed by one of the particular provisions set out in Articles 46 to 59b of that directive (see, by analogy with the Sixth Directive, Case C-327/94 Dudda  [1996] ECR I-4595, paragraph 21).
32. However, it is apparent from the Court’s case-law that only supplies of services which have a sufficiently direct connection with immovable property come under Article 47 of the VAT Directive (see, to that effect, Inter-Mark Group , paragraph 30). Such a connection is, moreover, characteristic of all supplies of services listed in that article (see, as regards Article 9(2)(a) of the Sixth Directive, Heger , paragraph 24).
33. As far as the concept of ‘immovable property’ is concerned, it should be borne in mind that the Court has already held that one of the essential characteristics of such property is that it is attached to a specific part of the territory of the Member State in which it is located (see, to that effect, Heger , paragraph 20).
34. Consequently, as the Advocate General noted at point 35 of her Opinion, in order for a supply of services to come within the scope of Article 47 of the VAT Directive, that supply must be connected to expressly specific immovable property.
35. However, in so far as a large number of services are connected in one way or another with immovable property, it is, in addition, necessary that the supply of services should relate to the immovable property itself. That is the case, inter alia, where expressly specific immovable property must be considered to be a constituent element of a supply of services, in that it constitutes a central and essential element thereof (see, to that effect, Heger , paragraph 25).