VAT assessment upheld — SME turnover threshold not exceeded

Summary

The District Court of Zeeland-West-Brabant (13 July 2026, ECLI:NL:RBZWB:2026:6383) upheld a VAT assessment against a sole trader (X) who ran a webshop and applied the small business scheme (kleineondernemersregeling, KOR). In 2022, X purchased €71,529 of services from Denmark, Ireland and Sweden, on which €15,021 of reverse-charge VAT was due. The tax inspector issued a corresponding additional assessment (naheffingsaanslag) for that reverse-charge VAT liability. [futd.nl]
X appealed, arguing that the KOR no longer applied in 2022 because the €20,000 turnover threshold had been exceeded, so he should be entitled to deduct input VAT, meaning no additional assessment should result on balance. The court rejected this reasoning. Under the KOR, participants are exempt from charging VAT but correspondingly have no right to deduct input VAT, so the reverse-charge VAT on the foreign services remained payable in full. [futd.nl], [btwinstituut.nl]
The case illustrates a common trap: reverse-charge VAT on services acquired from other EU member states is separate from the KOR exemption and remains due even for small businesses, without a corresponding input-VAT deduction. Since 1 January 2025 the KOR operates alongside the new EU-wide small business scheme (EU-KOR), with a national threshold of €20,000 and an EU-wide ceiling of €100,000, adding complexity for cross-border micro-traders. [belastingdienst.nl], [aaff.nl]

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