CJEU – Recent Developments in Value Added Tax 2015

I. S. 337CJEU Case Law on VAT: Statistics on Case Law

Figure 1: Trends: CJEU Cases (prejudicial questions and infringement procedures) throughout the years (1970-30 November 2015)

As the above graphics illustrate, there is an ‘inflation’ of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) cases regarding VAT. In six years, i.e., from 2010 to 2015, there have been 341 cases compared to 470 cases in 40 years, i.e., from 1970 to 2009.

This is associated with the fact that the European Union (EU) has massively changed over a period of 46 years. The introduction of the internal market and the abolition of boundaries for transactions between Member States has especially increased the questions referred to the Court on VAT. At the initiation of the internal market in 1993, there were only 12 Member States in the EU. Now the EU comprises 28 Member States which is more than double the initial number.

S. 338

Figure 2: CJEU cases on VAT (1970 – 30 November 2015) – Questions referred by each Member State

Figure 3: CJEU cases on VAT (1970-30 November 2015) – Questions referred by BE, HU, PL, FR, RO, LU, BG and NL

As depicted in the above graphs, many new cases are being referred by a number of the Member States ...