The European Court of Justice received preliminary questions in case C-802/19 (Firma Z).
Unofficial translation/summary:
- Pharmacy Z supplied in 2013 prescription medicines from NL to DE.
- On the one hand to persons who had a public health insurance policy and on the other hand to persons with a private health insurance.
- In both cases Z questionnaires were completed, which classified the payments as reimbursement of expenses (“price discounts”).
- Supplies to persons with public insurance were charged to the legal health insurance companies, which reimbursed this from social security collections.
- For these supplies, Z assumed since 1 October 2013 that the place of supply was in NL, and that supplies qualified as intra-Community supplies.
- Z also assumed that the legal health insurers were obliged to report intra-Community acquisitions in DE.
- Moreover, Z assumed that the price discounts reduced the taxable base.
- The German tax authorities did not agree.
- The question is, among other things, whether a pharmacy, that supplies medicines to a public insurance, is entitled to a reduce the taxable base for granting a price discount to the insured persons.
- If yes, is it contrary to the principles of neutrality and equal treatment in the internal market when a domestic pharmacy can reduce the taxable base, but a pharmacy that operates from another Member State cannot.
Source: minbuza.nl (Dutch/not published yet)
