- The court session confirmed that the corrections of the pre-tax for the period 2014 to 2016 are not disputed
- It is established that if the contractual reality were followed, the taxpayer would not owe sales tax on the property deliveries to the mentioned entities due to an exemption facility
- The inspector argues that there is an abuse of rights, which should lead to ignoring the transactions in question, resulting in the taxpayer owing sales tax on these property deliveries
- The court will assess whether there is an abuse of rights in this case
- The court uses a framework that generally allows taxpayers to choose transaction structures and terms that best suit their economic activities and reduce their tax burden
- Abuse of rights is prohibited only for purely artificial arrangements that are unrelated to economic reality and aimed solely at obtaining a tax advantage
- Abuse in sales tax occurs when actions formally meet the directive’s conditions but contradict the intended purpose by granting a tax benefit, and it is evident that obtaining a tax benefit was the essential purpose of the actions
- The assessment of abuse does not consider the purpose of the performances that formally meet the conditions for a tax benefit but rather the purpose of the transactions being assessed
- To determine the real content and meaning of agreements, the purely artificial nature of the transactions and the legal, economic, and/or personal connections between the involved businesses can be considered
- The determination of abuse arises not from the nature of the business transactions typically conducted but from the nature, objectives, and outcomes of the actions in question
- National law’s evidence rules require proving the essential characteristics of abuse, placing the burden on the inspector to demonstrate abuse of rights against the taxpayer’s dispute
- The inspector claims that a purely artificial construct was used
Source: uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl
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.
