- Rechtbank Den Haag issued a ruling on December 10, 2024
- The plaintiff is a contractor who uses subcontractors for actual construction work
- Subcontractors failed to declare significant amounts of VAT, wrongly claimed it as pre-tax deductions, and left it unpaid
- In early 2014, an investigation was conducted on the plaintiff by the defendant, resulting in a report
- The report accepted the VAT charged to the plaintiff under certain conditions
- A tax audit was conducted in mid-2017 on the plaintiff for VAT filings from 2012 to 2016
- Following the audit, VAT reassessment notices and a penalty fine were issued for the periods from 2012 to mid-2014
- The plaintiff appealed based on the trust established during the early 2014 audit discussions
- The court found that the defendant had indeed established a legally protectable trust that the VAT shift regulation would not apply to charges invoiced by subcontractors up to the report date
- The defendant argued that EU law prevents honoring the trust induced in the plaintiff, but the court rejected this argument
- The court declared the plaintiff’s appeals valid and annulled the reassessment notices, interest decisions, and penalty decisions
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.
