Source Curia
Decision
Article 20(2) of Council Directive 2008/9/EC of 12 February 2008 laying down detailed rules for the refund of value added tax, provided for in Directive 2006/112/EC, to taxable persons not established in the Member State of refund but established in another Member State must be interpreted as meaning that the period of 1 month laid down in that provision for providing the Member State of refund with the additional information requested by that Member State is not a limitation period whereby, if that period is exceeded or in the event of a failure to reply, the taxable person loses the possibility of regularising his refund application by producing, directly before the national court, additional information capable of establishing the existence of his right to the refund of value added tax.
Other
The German Sea Chefs Cruise Services has requested a VAT refund via the German portal site. The French tax authorities have sent a request for additional information to Sea Chefs by email. Because no response was received within the set period of one month, the refund request was rejected.
Sea Chefs has appealed against this to the French administrative court. In support of her appeal, she provided the court with the documents and information requested by the tax authorities.
According to the CJEU, the period of one month laid down in Article 20 (2) of Directive 2008/9 / EC to provide the Member State of refund with the additional information it has requested is not an expiry period which means that the taxable person, if this period is exceeded or not a response is made to the request for information, forfeits the possibility of regularizing his request for a refund by submitting directly to the national court the additional information proving his right to a VAT refund.
The deadline for submitting EU cross border refund claims are strict. However, that same strict approach does not apply to all subsequent correspondence. For example, a response to an information request may depend on feedback to be provided by third parties, which can sometimes make it impossible to meet the deadline. As such, the ECJ ruled that Sea Chefs’ claim should be granted.
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