Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 10 April 2024 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Fővárosi Törvényszék – Hungary) – Lear Corporation Hungary Autóipari Gyártó Kft. v Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Fellebbviteli Igazgatósága
(Case C-532/23, 1 Lear Corporation Hungary)
((Reference for a preliminary ruling – Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice – Questions the answer to which may be clearly deduced from the Court’s existing case-law – Taxation – Value added tax (VAT) – Directive 2006/112/EC – Article183 – Right to deduct input VAT – Rules governing exercise of that right – Late refund – Delay caused by the application of a national provision – Effect of a preliminary ruling given by the Court after those facts occurred – Late payment interest – Limitation – Principles of equivalence, effectiveness and fiscal neutrality)
Language of the case: Hungarian
Referring court
Fővárosi Törvényszék
Parties to the main proceedings
Applicant: Lear Corporation Hungary Autóipari Gyártó Kft.
Defendant: Nemzeti Adó- és Vámhivatal Fellebbviteli Igazgatósága
Operative part of the order
Article 183 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax
must be interpreted, in the light of the principles of equivalence, effectiveness and fiscal neutrality, as meaning that when a taxpayer person claims a refund of value added tax (VAT) which he or she could not request previously due to the application of a regulatory requirement that the Court has held to infringe that article, it does not preclude, in the circumstances provided for by the law of the Member State concerned, that claim for a refund from being regarded as also including a claim for late payment interest, having regard to the purpose of the payment of interest on excess VAT retained by a Member State in breach of the rules of EU law, which is intended to compensate the taxpayer for the financial loss that he or she incurred owing to the unavailability of the amounts concerned.
The principles of effectiveness and fiscal neutrality
must be interpreted as meaning that they (a) do not preclude a practice of a Member State which consists of excluding any obligation on the part of the tax authority of that State to allocate, at the stage of a claim for late payment interest, submitted within the limitation period, relating to amounts of VAT retained by that State in breach of EU law, interest not covered by that claim, but, in contrast, (b) do preclude that authority from classifying as new, with the consequence that it is time-barred, a second claim for late payment interest referring to a period which was not the subject of that first claim, where the second claim concerns late payment interest relating to amounts of VAT retained on account of the same infringement of EU law as that on which the first claim was based and where the possibility of extending the temporal scope of that claim was not known to the taxpayer until after the adoption of a national judicial decision following a decision of the Court delivered in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred on it by Article 267 TFEU.
The principles of effectiveness and fiscal neutrality
must be interpreted as meaning that they imply that, in accordance with the procedure which it is for each Member State to determine in the light of its national law, a second claim for late payment interest referring to a period which was not the subject of a first claim for payment of such interest must be regarded as supplementing that first claim (a) where that second claim concerns late payment interest relating to amounts of VAT retained on account of the same infringement of EU law as that on which the first claim was based and (b) where the possibility of extending the temporal scope of that first claim was known to the taxpayer only after the adoption of a national judicial decision following a decision of the Court delivered in the exercise of the jurisdiction conferred on it by Article 267 TFEU.
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1 OJ C C/2023/1127.