Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 8 November 2018 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunalul Prahova — Romania) — Cartrans Spedition Srl v Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Ploieşti — Administraţia Judeţeană a Finanţelor Publice Prahova, Direcţia Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti — Administraţia Fiscală pentru Contribuabili Mijlocii

(Case C-495/17) ¹

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Exemptions — Article 146(1)(e) and Article 153 — Road transport transactions directly connected with the export of goods — Supply of services by intermediaries taking part in such transactions — Rules on proof of export of goods — Customs declaration — TIR carnet)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Tribunalul Prahova

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Cartrans Spedition Srl

Defendants: Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Ploieşti — Administraţia Judeţeană a Finanţelor Publice Prahova, Direcţia Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti — Administraţia Fiscală pentru Contribuabili Mijlocii

Operative part of the judgment

Article 146(1)(e) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, on the one hand, and that provision in conjunction with Article 153 of that directive, on the other hand, must be interpreted as precluding a tax practice of a Member State under which the exemption from value added tax, for, respectively, the supply of transport services directly connected with the export of goods and for the supply of services by intermediaries taking part in those supplies of transport services is subject to the taxable person producing a customs export declaration in respect of the relevant goods. In that regard, it is for the competent authorities, for the purposes of granting those exemptions, to examine whether the meeting of the condition relating to the export of the relevant goods can be inferred, with a sufficiently high degree of probability, from all of the information available to those authorities. In that context, a TIR carnet which is certified by the customs offices of the third country for which the goods are destined, and which is produced by the taxable person, constitutes evidence which, in principle, those authorities must duly take into account, unless they have specific reasons to doubt the authenticity or reliability of that document.

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¹ OJ C 369, 30.10.2017.