VATupdate Newsletter Week 41 2025

DECK

This week on VATupdate.com:

The ECJ in Xyrality (C-101/24) ruled that a German app developer wasn’t liable for VAT on app store sales before 2015.
In Högkullen (C-808/23), the ECJ rejected automatic single-supply treatment for intra-group management services.
The European Commission issued formal notices to Belgium, France, and Malta for failing to fully implement VAT IT system rules.
And the EPPO indicted 36 suspects in a €24.3 million cross-border VAT fraud case. Proving that even in the game of VAT, cheating rarely pays.

To stick with this last one: if you think about it, a standard deck of playing cards is a masterpiece of design and order, disguised as randomness. Fifty-two cards, four suits, thirteen ranks per suit. The pattern even matches the rhythm of the year: four seasons, thirteen weeks each, and fifty-two weeks in total. Add up all the pips on all the cards, and you’ll get 365: one for every day of the year.

Even the Jokers have a role: they’re the mischief-makers that appear only when the calendar plays a trick, every four years, in leap years. A built-in reminder that even in perfect systems, exceptions exist.

And that’s when I started thinking: this sounds an awful lot like VAT.

VAT, too, is a deck of rules and systems that appear perfectly balanced. The Directive sets the suits, the ECJ defines the face cards, and the national authorities shuffle and deal. Every taxpayer gets their hand in the form of invoices, deductions, declarations. And tries to play it right.

But just when you think you’ve figured out the rules, a Joker pops up.

A case that changes the definition of a taxable person.

A new interpretation of “fixed establishment.”

Or, lately, a digital platform that’s suddenly deemed to be the supplier.

The game starts again. The deck reshuffles.

Still, just like with cards, there’s a certain beauty in the repetition. Each quarter has its return, each year its adjustments. You learn when to hold your aces, when to declare your trumps, and when it’s best not to bluff the tax authority.

Because in the end, no matter how clever your play, the house always collects its share: 21%, give or take.

If you want to play around with VAT, make sure you visit VATupdate.com every day.

If you have any comments, questions, or ideas that you want to share with us, please send us an email at [email protected] or leave a comment under the posts of this newsletter on LinkedIn.

To go directly to the region, click below: