ECJ - Recent Developments in Value Added Tax

S. 22I. Introduction

More than 40 years ago, when debating the introduction of VAT into the British tax system, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Anthony Barber made the following bold statement in the course of the Finance bill debate of 1972: ‘we have attached particular importance to keeping the tax simple.’ 30 years and 250 European Court of Justice VAT rulings later, Lord Justice Sedley felt quite differently when dealing with a VAT case in 2001: ‘Beyond the everyday world … lies the world of VAT; a kind of fiscal theme park in which factual and legal realities are suspended or inverted.’ VAT experts will of course ask themselves whether the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has a ‘direct and immediate link’ to the state of affairs so eloquently described by Lord Justice Sedley. The present paper will try to make a small contribution to this book’s mission of finding out where the Court’s case law has led us to and what challenges still lie ahead. To that end, a short overview of what could arguably be considered to be the major achievements and the most significant shortcomings of the Court’s case law in the last decades, and particularly in recen...