CJEU - Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2014

I. S. 22Introduction

According to many, VAT should be a technical issue. Legal certainty being of paramount importance to all those involved in the taxation process, above all the taxable person, the VAT Directive should be applied and construed in a predictable fashion. Where it is unclear how to apply its provisions in a specific situation - which is often the case - it is the CJEU’s task to provide an ad hoc solution that, ideally, should strike a fair balance between the exchequer and the taxpayer’s interests and fit snugly into the existing body of case law.

Does or, indeed, can the CJEU live up to these expectations? This is not the place to give an answer to this question. However, some factors should be mentioned that make it particularly hard for the CJEU, in its case law, to develop a uniform interpretative approach to VAT. Firstly, there is of course the VAT Directive itself which presents the reader with quite a number of interpretative posers and lacks detail. Secondly, the CJEU’s chambers, in principle, are not specialized in any field of law. This means that cases in the field of VAT are assigned to all of the CJEU’s chambers, and each judge of the CJEU is occasionally char...