In European Commission v the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Case C-274/15) (4 May 2017) the CJEU found that the Luxembourg provisions on cost sharing did not implement the Principal VAT directive properly.
The issue was whether the Luxemburg provisions on cost sharing were consistent with the Principal VAT Directive Arts 2(1)(c) and 132(1)(f) in providing that the services supplied by a ‘cost-sharing group’ to its members were exempt from VAT provided that the members’ exempt activities represented more than 70% of their turnover.
The CJEU observed that Art 132(1)(f) does not exempt the supply of services which are not directly necessary for the exercise of the exempt activities of a member of a cost sharing group or those in relation to which it is not a taxable person. Consequently by exempting services supplied by a cost-sharing group according to a de minimis threshold of taxable supplies Luxembourg had...
