The Austrian tax authorities take the view that the simplification rules for triangular transactions (Art 141 and 197 VAT-Directive 2006/112) are not applicable in case the intermediary supplier is (also) registered for VAT purposes in the country of destination.
According to the recent judgement of the Austrian Supreme Court (Judgement of 15.12.2021, Ro 2020/15/0003) this is however not in line with the VAT-Directive. In case the intermediary supplier was granted various VAT-ID numbers from different EU-Member States, it is decisive which VAT-ID is communicated by the intermediary supplier in course of the purchase of the goods.
Under the present constellation (supply chain company Italy – Switzerland – Slovenia) a triangular transaction is at hand if the intermediary supplier from Switzerland has also a Slovenian VAT-ID number but has communicated his Austrian VAT-ID number when acquiring the goods from the Italian supplier.
The above information was kindly provided by Pichler Peter from LeitnerLeitner (Austria); contact: [email protected].
