Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 14 December 2016 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Commissione Tributaria Regionale di Roma — Italy) — Mercedes Benz Italia SpA v Agenzia delle Entrate Direzione Provinciale Roma 3
(Case C-378/15) 1
(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Taxation — Value added tax — Directive 77/388/EEC — Article 17(5), third subparagraph, point (d) — Scope — Application of a deductible proportion to the value added tax charged on the acquisition of all goods and services used by a taxable person — Incidental transactions — Use of turnover as an indicator)
Language of the case: Italian
Referring court
Commissione tributaria regionale di Roma
Parties to the main proceedings
Applicant: Mercedes Benz Italia SpA
Defendant: Agenzia delle Entrate Direzione Provinciale Roma 3
Operative part of the judgment
Point (d) of the third subparagraph of Article 17(5) and Article 19 of Sixth Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes — Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment, must be interpreted as not precluding national rules and practice, such as those at issue in the main proceedings, which require a taxable person:
– to apply to all goods and services which he has acquired a deductible proportion based on turnover, without providing for a method of calculation which is based on the nature and actual destination of each of the goods and services acquired and which objectively reflects the portion of the expenditure actually to be attributed to each of the taxed and untaxed activities; and
– to refer to the composition of his turnover in order to identify transactions which may be classified as ‘incidental’, in so far as the assessment carried out for that purpose also takes account of the relationship between those transactions and the taxable activities of that taxable person and, as the case may be, of the use which they entail of the goods and services which are subject to value added tax.
____________1 OJ C 337, 12.10.2015.