Appeal Court upholds tax liability but cancels penalty due to lack of evidence of gross negligence

– Stakeholder issued an invoice with value-added tax but didn’t pay it through the declaration.
– Inspector imposed a supplementary assessment with a penalty.
– Supplementary assessment remains valid due to Article 37 of the 1968 VAT Act, even if no taxable supply was made.
– Stakeholder was questioned for a debt investigation, and the report wasn’t submitted.
– The court doesn’t consider the report when assessing the penalty.
– Inspector’s evidence for the penalty is based on the claim that the stakeholder ‘should have known better,’ but it doesn’t prove gross negligence.
– Failing to file a supplementary return doesn’t prove gross negligence at the time of the declaration.
– Inspector didn’t meet the burden of proof that it’s due to the gross negligence of the stakeholder that they didn’t pay the value-added tax through the declaration.
– Question IV must be answered in the negative.

Source: uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl

Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.

---

---