Incidental Transactions Excluded from the VAT Pro Rata Calculation: The ECJ and the Italian Supreme Court Interpretations

Abstract

The concept of incidental transactions exempt for VAT purposes has never been defined either by legislation or by jurisprudence. In this article, the authors analyse which factors the ECJ considers relevant for identifying the nature of incidental transactions in order to understand to what extent a recent decision of the Italian Supreme Court differs from the ECJ’s jurisprudence. The authors find that, even though the Italian jurisprudence borrows most of its arguments from the ECJ’s jurisprudence, the outcome seems not to be completely aligned with it.