“General provisions Article 62 For the purposes of this Directive: (1) ‘chargeable event’ shall mean the occurrence by virtue of which the legal conditions necessary for VAT to become chargeable are fulfilled; (2) VAT shall become ‘chargeable’ when the tax authority becomes entitled under the law, at a given moment, to claim the tax from the person liable to pay, even though the time of payment may be deferred. Supply of goods or services Article 63 The chargeable event shall occur and VAT shall become chargeable when the goods or the services are supplied. Article 64 1. Where it gives rise to successive statements of account or successive payments, the supply of goods, other than that consisting in the hire of goods for a certain period or the sale of goods on deferred terms, as referred to in point (b) of article 14(2), or the supply of services shall be regarded as being completed on expiry of the periods to which such statements of account or payments relate. 2. Member States may provide that, in certain cases, the continuous supply of goods or services over a period of time is to be regarded as being completed at least at intervals of one year. Article 65 Where a payment is to be made on account before the goods or services are supplied, VAT shall become chargeable on receipt of the payment and on the amount received. Article 66 By way of derogation from articles 63, 64 and 65, Member States may provide that VAT is to become chargeable, in respect of certain transactions or certain categories of taxable person at one of the following times: (a) no later than the time the invoice is issued; (b) no later than the time the payment is received; (c) where an invoice is not issued, or is issued late, within a specified period from the date of the chargeable event. Article 67 1. Where, in accordance with the conditions laid down in article 138, goods dispatched or transported to a Member State other than that in which dispatch or transport of the goods begins are supplied VAT-exempt or where goods are transferred VAT-exempt to another Member State by a taxable person for the purposes of his business, VAT shall become chargeable on the 15th day of the month following that in which the chargeable event occurs. 2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, VAT shall become chargeable on issue of the invoice provided for in article 220, if that invoice is issued before the 15th day of the month following that in which the chargeable event occurs.”
“(1) The provisions of this section shall apply, subject to sections 18, 18B and 18C, for determining the time when a supply of goods or services is to be treated as taking place for the purposes of the charge to VAT. (2) Subject to subsections (4) to (14) below, a supply of goods shall be treated as taking place— (a) if the goods are to be removed, at the time of the removal; (b) if the goods are not to be removed, at the time when they are made available to the person to whom they are supplied; (c) if the goods (being sent or taken on approval or sale or return or similar terms) are removed before it is known whether a supply will take place, at the time when it becomes certain that the supply has taken place or, if sooner, 12 months after the removal. (3) Subject to subsections (4) to (14) below, a supply of services shall be treated as taking place at the time when the services are performed. (4) If, before the time applicable under subsection (2) or (3) above, the person making the supply issues a VAT invoice in respect of it or if, before the time applicable under subsection (2)(a) or (b) or (3) above, he receives a payment in respect of it, the supply shall, to the extent covered by the invoice or payment, be treated as taking place at the time the invoice is issued or the payment is received. … (14) The Commissioners may by regulations make provision with respect to the time at which (notwithstanding subsections (2) to (8) and (11) to (13) above or section 55(4)) a supply is to be treated as taking place in cases where— (a) it is a supply of goods or services for a consideration the whole or part of which is determined or payable periodically, or from time to time, or at the end of any period, or … and for any such case as is mentioned in this subsection the regulations may provide for goods or services to be treated as separately and successively supplied at prescribed times or intervals.”
“it is apparent from the explanatory memorandum to the proposal which resulted in the adoption of the Sixth Directive (COM(73) 950) that, by adopting the second subparagraph of article 4(4) of the Sixth Directive, which was replaced by article 11 of the [PVD], the European Union legislature intended, either in the interests of simplifying administration or with a view to combating abuses such as, for example, the splitting-up of one undertaking among several taxable persons so that each might benefit from a special scheme, to ensure that member states would not be obliged to treat as taxable persons those whose ‘independence’ is purely a legal technicality.”
“It is essential to apply the time of supply rules in order to determine whether the supply took place while the group relationship still existed. Unless a supply during the period of the relationship is identified as having taken place there is nothing upon which section [43(1)(a)] can bite. One can hardly disregard something which did not happen.”
“… a supply may be treated as taking place at more than one time, but nevertheless it remains a single supply. It is ‘the’ supply which is to be so treated. The Act does not deem the creation of two or more supplies. Accordingly it would not seem to me correct to talk of a supply taking place at the time of the prepayment and another supply taking place at the time of the removal of the goods.”
“when the time of ‘supply’ provisions fixed a supply to take place at a time when the two parties were in a group, that ‘supply’ should be ignored, but that it did not follow that the delivery of goods or the supply of services which took place between the parties was not a ‘taxable supply’ chargeable to tax”
“51. Thus the effect of section 29 of the 1983 Act [now section 43 of the VATA 1994] was that Svenska was treated as never having carried on the economic activity of making supplies of services. It was the group which was treated as having acquired the input services supplied to Svenska and the group which was treated as having used them for the economic activity of making exempt services supplied by Branch. The case is not authority for the proposition that … one can retrospectively form a new intention about the use of goods or services which have already been used, like the right to occupy premises for a period which has expired.”
“… the question of whether a supply is taxable often depends upon the time at which it is treated as having taken place. Thus the question of taxability must be determined by applying the time of supply rules. The only alternative is to use some kind of meta-rules, derived from fairness, common sense and other such concepts lodged in the judicial bosom. … The time of supply rules are in my view the only criteria for deciding whether the transaction is to be treated as having occurred at a time when it was taxable.”
“The company provides agency business services in the professional football sector. When the company successfully places a player with a football club, it receives commission from that club, provided that the player subsequently signs an employment contract and holds a licence issued by the Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH (German Football League). That commission is paid to the company in instalments every six months for as long as the player remains under a contract with that club and holds a German Football League licence.”
“must be interpreted as precluding the chargeable event and chargeability of a tax on the supply of agency services for professional football players by an agent, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, paid in conditional instalments over several years further to the placement, from being regarded as occurring or taking effect when the player is placed.”
“21 That court also notes that the present case may be distinguished from that which gave rise to the judgment of29 November 2018 , baumgarten sports & more (C-548/17, EU:C:2018:970), which concerned supplies of the services of a sports agent, namely the placement of a player with a football club in so far as the agent’s remuneration was tied to the player’s placement within the club in question being continued. The case in the main proceedings concerns a situation in which the payment of the agreed remuneration in instalments is merely subject to certain timeframes rather than conditional on the long-term success of the agency service, which may be uncertain.”
“As for its interpretation, the wording ‘supplies which give rise to successive payments’ could be construed either as including one-time supplies for an agreed consideration paid in several instalments, or as concerning only supplies the nature of which justify payment in instalments, namely those which are not performed on a single occasion, but repeated or continuous over a certain period.”
“41 In that regard, it should be made clear that article 64(1) of the directive, read in conjunction with article 63 thereof, is intended to facilitate the collection of VAT and, in particular, the ascertaining of when the liability to tax arises. 42 In order to ascertain when the chargeable event occurs and the tax becomes chargeable, article 63 of [the PVD] requires that the actual supply of a service be determined. As the Advocate General stated in point 41 of his Opinion, article 63 does not specify which event is to be regarded as the time of supply, so that it is for the competent national authorities and courts to ascertain the time at which it actually took place. 43 By contrast, under article 64(1) of [the PVD], the chargeable event and chargeability of VAT are tied to the expiry of the periods to which the payments for the services supplied relate. article 64(1) therefore sets out a legal rule from which the precise time of the chargeable event may be ascertained on the basis of a legal fiction, without needing to make the findings necessary for ascertaining when a service was actually supplied. … 45 However, as a legal rule for determining the time from which a liability to tax arises, article 64(1) of the directive applies only to the extent that the date or dates of the actual completion of services are [not] unambiguous The English text of the judgment says “are unambiguous” but this is clearly a mistranslation given the sense of the comment as contrasted with what is said in the following para.The French version of para 45 makes this clear: “ne s’impose que pour autant que le ou les moments de réalisation effective des prestations ne sont pas univoques” and potentially give rise to different interpretations, which is the case where they are, on account of their continuous or recurrent nature, supplied during one or several specific periods. 46 By contrast, as the Advocate General observed, in essence, in point 44 of his Opinion, where the time at which the supply of services is completed is unambiguous, in particular, in the event of a one-time supply and of a precise point in time from which its completion can be ascertained on the basis of the contractual relationship between the parties to the transaction, article 64(1) of [the PVD] cannot apply without disregarding the clear wording of article 63 of that directive. 47 In addition, in accordance with the latter provision, read in the light of recital 24 of [the PVD], the chargeable event and chargeability of VAT are not governed freely by the parties to the contract. On the contrary, the EU legislature thereby intended maximum harmonisation of the date on which liability to pay VAT arises in all the Member States in order to ensure the uniform collection of that tax (judgment of2 May 2019 , Budimex, C-224/18, EU:C:2019:347, paragraph 22 and the case-law cited).”
“50 Furthermore, it cannot be inferred from the case-law of the Court that article 64(1) of Directive 2006/112 may apply even to a one-time supply of services. The cases in which the Court upheld the applicability of that provision concerned services supplied during specified periods on the basis of contracts which provided for obligations of a continuous nature, whether it be the lease of a vehicle (judgment of16 February 2012 , Eon Aset Menidjmunt, C-118/11, EU:C:2012:97), consulting services of a legal, commercial or financial nature (judgments of3 September 2015 , Asparuhovo Lake Investment Company, C-463/14, EU:C:2015:542, and of15 September 2016 , Barlis 06 – Investimentos Imobiliários e Turísticos, C-516/14, EU:C:2016:690), or agency services for the placement of a player to and in a football club (judgment of29 November 2018 , baumgarten sports & more, C-548/17, EU:C:2018:970).”
“20. Finally, with regard to the possibility of fraud, it must be borne in mind that even the rule that the tax is chargeable at the moment when the services are performed enables suppliers and recipients of services to select that moment to serve their own interests. In any event, the supplier’s interest in receiving payment of the service provided and the fact that, according to article 17(1) of the [Sixth] Directive, the right to deduct the tax arises at the time when it becomes chargeable limits the cases in which payment is postponed in order to defer the moment the tax becomes chargeable.”