The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that Member States must accept, as formally submitted, VAT refund requests that contain invoice identifiers other than sequential invoice numbers.
In case C-346/19 (Judgment of 17 December 2020), an Austrian taxpayer’s VAT Refund application was rejected by Germany’s Federal Central Tax Office, on the grounds that the “invoice numbers” listed on the application form were reference numbers rather than sequential invoice numbers.
The Austrian taxpayer challenged the notice, but the tax office ruled that the reference numbers didn’t comply with legal requirements and that the taxpayer had therefore failed to formally submit a valid refund request within the statutory time period allowed.
The CJEU disagreed, holding that a refund application under these circumstances must be considered validly submitted. In the court’s view, the substantive requirements of the application were satisfied, given that the reference numbers provided by the taxpayer allowed the invoices to be identified.
The court thought it particularly relevant that the Federal Central Tax Office had the ability to request further information, including copies of the original invoices, if it felt that the information provided by the taxpayer was insufficient to grant the refund. Declaring the application invalid without making a request for further information was a disproportionate penalty for the failure to comply with a purely formal requirement.
Source: SOVOS
