Born in Poland and residing in France, A was registered with the Chamber of Commerce for the activities of travel brokerage, the provision of services by forwarders, ship brokers, charterers and other intermediaries in the transport of goods, the retail trade in food and drink and the provision of bus transport. The Tax and Customs Administration has imposed an additional assessment because A wrongly failed to declare intra-Community acquisitions in the Netherlands. The VAT to be levied on this cannot be refunded under Section 30 of the OB Act because A’s actions are part of a chain of transactions in which tax fraud is committed. A was aware of this or should have been aware of it. There is conditional intentor guilt. For that reason, A cannot invoke the last sentence of Article 17b paragraph 2 of the OB Act.
Source BTW jurisprudentie
Note from one of our readers (thank you!):
I think you misinterpreted the outcome of this court case. Please check (in Dutch) r.o. 36 “Ondanks dat eiser had kunnen weten deel te nemen aan fraude, bestaat geen grond om de naheffing ter zake van de intracommunautaire verwervingen waarop dit geschil ziet, te handhaven. Daarom dient het beroep gegrond te worden verklaard. De naheffingsaanslag moet worden verminderd met € 717.273 tot € 2.837.” You state in your article “A was aware of this [fraud] or should have been aware of it. There is conditional intentor guilt. For that reason, A cannot invoke the last sentence of Article 17b paragraph 2 of the OB Act.”. There cannot be a VAT deduction in the Netherlands after an intra-Community acquisition NOT because of the involvement in VAT fraud BUT because the transaction was not taxable in the Netherlands (i.e. the intra-Community acquisition took place in Czech Republik already). Hence, in my opinion, your summary does not represent the actual grounds of the court decision in the meaning of denying the VAT deduction.
