The VAT treatment of special tools (“tooling”) in the EU concerns whether their sale is considered a separate supply or an ancillary service to the products made with them. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in case C-234/24 (Brose Prievidza) that a VAT-exempt intra-community supply requires the actual movement of goods to another member state. If the tool remains in the supplier’s country, it is a taxable local supply, not an intra-community supply, and cannot be treated as an ancillary service to the components. Some member states previously treated tooling as an ancillary service, but the ECJ ruling requires a case-by-case assessment. The Swiss special rule, which treats tooling as part of the supply of the manufactured goods, is unaffected by the ECJ decision.
Source: taxpartner.ch
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.
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