- The European Court of Justice has ruled that an employee who issues false invoices without the consent of their employer is considered the debtor of the VAT indicated on the invoices.
- The court case was brought by a Polish administrative judge who found conflicting interpretations of the law in Poland.
- The relevant provision is Article 203 of Directive 2006/112/EC, which states that VAT is due from anyone who indicates the tax on an invoice.
- The purpose of the provision is to eliminate the risk of tax revenue loss that could result from the right to deduction provided by the VAT directive.
- In this specific case, the fraudulent issuance of invoices was intended to allow recipients to improperly benefit from VAT deduction.
- The application of Article 203 is not in question because there is a risk of loss of tax revenue in this case.
- The right to deduction for recipients of false invoices would not be offset by the payment of the VAT by the employee.
Source: eutekne.info
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
