- The Munich Fiscal Court treated a guest card as a voucher, specifically a multi-purpose voucher, because it grants different services with different VAT rates and the tax rate is not fixed at issuance.
- Under this view, VAT arises only when the card is redeemed for actual services; the transfer of the card itself is not taxable.
- The municipality provides a taxable distribution service to the accommodation providers, but it does not receive taxable services from the service partners, so input VAT deduction is denied.
- The ruling follows the CJEU “DSAB Destination Stockholm” case but leaves open issues such as whether vouchers need a nominal value and how to avoid double taxation.
- Participants in guest card models should review their contracts and structures to clarify VAT treatment and reduce double-taxation risk.
Source: datenbank.nwb.de
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.
