Question 13559 — value added tax

Summary

Mr. Philippe Pradal draws the attention of the Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty to the difficulties encountered by professional training organizations established in another Member State of the European Union and subject to VAT, acting as subcontractors of professional training organizations established in France and subject to VAT, to benefit from the VAT exemption resulting from article 261, 4, 4° of the general tax code (“CGI” hereinafter), transposing article 132.1 of European directive 2006/112/EC. In order to benefit from this VAT exemption, the professional training organization must benefit from a certificate issued by the regional directorate of the economy, employment, labor and solidarity (Dreets). Article 202 A of appendix 2 to the CGI sets out the conditions for be able to benefit from this certificate, including the fact of having subscribed to an initial declaration of activity. In this regard, it results from a contrario reading of a judgment published in the Lebon collection rendered by the Administrative Court of Appeal of Versailles (CAA Versailles, 3rd chamber, February 1, 2011, 09VE02 201), that in the case of subcontracting, both the subcontracting service provider and the lessee must hold the certificate issued by DREETS, so that the provision of services is exempt from VAT. However, subscribing to the initial declaration of activity in France requires that the training organization communicate a SIRET number, which ultimately implies, in the case of a company not established in France or not having a permanent establishment there, to be at least registered for French VAT. In such a situation, the transaction is subject to VAT French (article 259, lº of the CGI), and the taxable customer is the person liable for VAT via a principle of reverse charge (article 283, 2 of the CGI). In practice, the tax administration refuses French VAT registration for service providers established in another Member State on this sole ground. In the absence of French VAT registration or allocation of a SIRET number to the subcontractor established in another Member State, it cannot it is not possible for it to make the initial declaration of activity, and therefore neither the subcontractor nor the lessee can benefit from the VAT exemption provided for in article 261, 4, 4° of the CGI. This results in an attack on the principle of freedom to provide services under Article 56 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (“TFEU” hereinafter) to the extent that this refusal to register for French VAT leads, ultimately, to deny the right to VAT exemption on the sole ground that the subcontracting service provider is established in another Member State. The impossibility of benefiting from this VAT exemption is in contradiction with the spirit of the VAT directive and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (in particular the judgments CJEU, 07/25/1991, C288/89, Mediawet I; CJEU, 06/03/2010, C-258/08, Ladbrokes Betting; CJEU, 08/09/2009, Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional and Bwin International, C-42/07). This is why he wishes to ask how he intends to draw the consequences of the aforementioned European case law with regard to professional training establishments established in another Member State and acting as subcontractors.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

Timeline

No timeline events have been ingested for this record yet.

Votes

No vote records are attached yet.

Versions

No version snapshots stored. Document URLs remain at the source.

Documents

No documents linked.

Sponsors

No sponsors or actors listed by the source.

Related records

No cross-record relationships stored yet.