Pension Fund Not Exempt from VAT, Court Rules Against Stichting X’s Appeal

• Stichting X was a sector pension fund for employees of affiliated companies.
• From 2017, X purchased services from foreign asset manager A Ltd.
• X received an invoice in July 2018 for 145041 euros and paid the deferred VAT of 30459 euros.
• X objected and received a partial refund of 25722 euros.
• X appealed, claiming its assets qualified for a VAT exemption under Dutch law.
• The Hague Court disagreed, leading X to appeal further.
• The Hague Court of Appeal ruled that the EU Court of Justice had not indicated that all pension funds were collective investment funds.
• The key factor was whether participants bore the investment risk, which was not the case for X.
• The appeal by X was declared unfounded.

Source: futd.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.