The Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has issued an opinion stating that entrepreneurs should be able to recover overpaid VAT that was included in the price of goods or services sold to consumers. The opinion was issued in response to a case where an entrepreneur applied for a refund of VAT overpayment resulting from the adjustment of the VAT rate on the sale of recreation-related services. The tax office had refused to refund the overpaid VAT, stating that consumers had borne the burden of the overpaid tax and that returning the overpaid VAT to sellers would result in unjust enrichment. The Advocate General argued that entrepreneurs should be able to recover overpaid VAT even in cases where it is not possible to correct fiscal receipts, and that the correction of fiscal receipts should not be necessary. The Advocate General also argued that it cannot be said that the refund of the overpayment will result in unjust enrichment of entrepreneurs, and that even if it were assumed that the entrepreneur would be unjustly enriched, it was unacceptable that a Member State, which itself caused the erroneous application of an inflated tax rate, could retain this tax surplus. The CJEU has previously ruled positively in similar cases.
Source MDDP
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