Lucreţiu Hadrian Vădan v Agenţia Naţională de Administrare Fiscală – Direcţia Generală de Soluţionare a Contestaţiilor and Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Braşov - Administraţia Judeţeană a Finanţelor Publice Alba.
Date: 2018-11-21
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It should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, the Court has jurisdiction to interpret EU law only as regards its application in a new Member State with effect from the date of that State’s accession to the European Union (order of 11 May 2017, Exmitiani, C‑286/16, not published, EU:C:2017:368, paragraph 12).
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According to settled case-law of the Court, the right to deduct VAT is a fundamental principle of the common system of VAT, which in principle may not be limited, and is exercisable immediately in respect of all the taxes charged on the taxable person’s input transactions (judgment of 9 July 2015, Salomie and Oltean, C‑183/14, EU:C:2015:454, paragraph 56 and the case-law cited).
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That system is designed to relieve the trader entirely of the burden of the VAT due or paid in the course of all his economic activities. The common system of VAT consequently ensures that all economic activities, whatever their purpose or results, provided that they are themselves subject to VAT, are taxed in a wholly neutral way (judgment of 9 July 2015, Salomie and Oltean, C‑183/14, EU:C:2015:454, paragraph 57 and the case-law cited).
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Under Article 167 of the VAT Directive, a right of deduction arises at the time the deductible tax becomes chargeable. The substantive conditions which must be met in order for the right to arise are set out in Article 168(a) of that directive. Thus, for that right to be available, first, the person concerned must be a taxable person within the meaning of that directive and, secondly, the goods or services relied on to give entitlement to the right of deduction must be used by the taxable person for the purposes of his own taxed output transactions and those goods or services must be supplied by another taxable person as inputs (judgment of 15 September 2016, Senatex, C‑518/14, EU:C:2016:691, paragraph 28 and the case-law cited).
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As regards the formal conditions for the right of deduction, it is apparent from Article 178(a) of the VAT Directive that the exercise of that right is subject to holding an invoice drawn up in accordance with Article 226 of that directive (judgment of 15 September 2016, Senatex, C‑518/14, EU:C:2016:691, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).
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The Court has held that the fundamental principle of the neutrality of VAT requires deduction of input VAT to be allowed if the substantive requirements are satisfied, even if the taxable persons have failed to comply with some formal conditions. It follows that the tax authorities cannot refuse the right to deduct VAT on the sole ground that an invoice does not satisfy the conditions required by Article 226(6) and (7) of the VAT Directive if they have available all the information to ascertain whether the substantive conditions for that right are satisfied (judgment of 15 September 2016, Barlis 06 — Investimentos Imobiliários e Turísticos, C‑516/14, EU:C:2016:690, paragraphs 42 and 43).
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Nevertheless, it is for the taxable person seeking deduction of VAT to establish that he meets the conditions for eligibility (judgment of 15 September 2016, Barlis 06 — Investimentos Imobiliários e Turísticos, C‑516/14, EU:C:2016:690, paragraph 46 and the case-law cited).