- A recipient who overpays VAT due to an incorrect invoice must seek reimbursement from the provider through civil law.
- If enforcing this civil claim is impossible or excessively difficult, the recipient can claim the VAT amount from their tax office, known as a direct claim.
- The direct claim was first derived from EU law in the Reemtsma decision by the ECJ in 2007.
- About 15 years later, the tax administration acknowledged this claim in principle in a 2022 letter.
- Not all questions regarding the direct claim are resolved.
- The ECJ recently ruled that there is no direct claim for cross-border situations.
Source: datenbank.nwb.de
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.
