Following the judgment of the European Court of Justice of 2 December 2010 in case C-276/09, G5, SKAT changed its practice regarding the VAT treatment of payment and credit card fees, as it followed from the Court’s decision that such fees did not – as it followed of SKAT’s previous practice – is consideration for a VAT-exempt payment processing service, but instead is part of the consideration (bio-cost) for the product or service that the customer pays for with the card. If the purchased product or service is subject to VAT, VAT must be calculated on the fee. SKAT changed its practice upon the publication on 23 January 2012 of the Legal Guide 2012-1, whereby the judgment and the change in practice were mentioned with news markings in the form of arrow symbols. It was undisputed during the proceedings that the old practice was illegal.
The applicant argued, in the first place, that the aggravating change in practice had not been duly announced until the publication of a SKAT notice in 2014, and in the second place that the change in practice could only be enforced after 6 months from the publication of the Legal Guide. on the change in practice by passing on the VAT of the card fees to the customers.
The Court of First Instance found that the change in practice had been duly announced at the time of publication of the Legal Guide and that the applicant was not entitled, either on a principle of equality or as a principle of expectation, to notice prior to the enforcement of the legal practice.
Source: skat.dk
