EU General Court rejects late invoices for triangular VAT simplification

The invoices arrived years after the supplies

The case concerned an Austrian company that bought work clothing from suppliers in Sweden and Denmark and arranged delivery directly to customers in other EU Member States between 2011 and 2014. Its original invoices did not identify the triangular simplification or say that the customer was liable for VAT. In 2015, the company issued replacement invoices with the required wording and corrected its recapitulative statements, but the Austrian tax authority refused the resulting VAT adjustment.^[1]

The reverse-charge statement is a material condition

Articles 42 and 141 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC provide a simplification for qualifying intra-EU triangular transactions. Article 197 makes the final customer liable where the Article 141 conditions are met and the intermediary’s invoice complies with the Directive’s invoicing rules. Article 226(11a) requires the words “Reverse charge”. The mechanism can relieve the intermediary of registration and payment obligations in the Member State where the goods arrive while identifying the customer as the person liable for VAT.^[1][2]

No retroactive or current-period repair

The General Court held that the invoicing statement is not a formality that can be repaired retrospectively. An invoice that first contains the required wording several years after the transaction is the first compliant invoice, rather than a correction of an earlier compliant document. It cannot transfer liability to the customer retroactively, and it cannot activate the simplification only in the later period when it is issued. That would detach the VAT treatment from the underlying supply and change the final customer’s position after the event.^[1]

Practical consequence for cross-border chains

The Court also rejected reliance on case law allowing correction where neutrality is preserved, bad faith is absent or revenue is not at risk: those cases do not remove a material condition that determines who owes the tax. For intermediaries using the triangular simplification, the required wording should therefore be present when the invoice is issued, alongside accurate recapitulative reporting. A replacement invoice issued years later may be too late to prevent registration or VAT exposure in the destination Member State. Because the first answer was negative, the Court did not answer the second and third questions referred.^[1]