The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is now considering whether the program fee is a taxable service and whether sales tax can therefore generally be offset.
The Administrative Court (VwGH) has requested this preliminary ruling. The litigation financier AdvoFin, which started a class action lawsuit against the ORF subsidiary GIS a few years ago, got the ball rolling.
According to “Kurier”, AdvoFin boss Gerhard Wüest is of the opinion that the offsetting of VAT on a fee is “basically not permitted under the EU VAT Directive”. “Since I’m obliged to pay program fees, it’s not a fair exchange of service and consideration. A service is taxable if it is voluntary,” says Wüest.
100 euros for each GIS payer
AdvoFin relies on a decision on Czech public service broadcasting. At that time, the ECJ decided with the same argument that the fee is not subject to sales tax.
Should AdvoFin be successful with the lawsuit, it would also be possible for every GIS payer to claim back the sales tax of around 100 euros for the past five years.
Source: Nachrichten
