argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: VAT - taxation of imported goods - final destination

On March 3, 2021, with the judgment rendered in case C-7/20, the Court of Justice of the European Union returned to ruling on the dependence of the provisions regulating import VAT on those of customs matrix, in particular with relevance to the identification of the place where the VAT is due if the imported goods have been removed from customs control or the formalities for their introduction into the Community territory have not been completed. The need to ensure taxation in the place of actual and final destination of the asset allows to overcome the supremacy of customs rules. In the present case, the question arose whether a German citizen debtor who had introduced a vehicle registered in Turkey into Germany without declaring it to customs, would have failed to pay the related customs duties and import VAT. In the dispute arising from the claim of the German customs authorities, the national judge considered it undisputed that, in accordance with art. 87, par. 4, of the Union Customs Code the customs debt arose in Germany. If it is true, in fact, that the vehicle materially entered the territory of the Union through Bulgaria and, consequently, it was in that Member State that it should have been presented to customs, it was the German authorities who ascertained the existence of the ‘customs debt.