Providing Accommodation for a Fee?

The taxpayer is a Lithuanian staffing agency that provides personnel to clients in the Netherlands.
The agency offers housing to its employees, deducting a fee from their wages.
The agency does not own the accommodations and employees are not obligated to use them.
The agency requests a refund of VAT paid for the housing from third-party providers.
The main issue in dispute is whether the provision of housing is a service for a fee.
A service is considered to be provided for a fee when there is a direct connection between the service and the received consideration.
The requirement for the consideration to be real means there must be a genuine connection between the service provided and the amount paid.
The fact that the service provider earns a small portion of the costs does not establish a genuine connection.

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.