Handling of the inclusion of a company into the VIES registry before an impending transaction
In the case of Spain, the inclusion of a company into the Spanish VIES registry, although it is obligatory if intra-Community operations are performed, is not granted automatic, but will often require a period of between 1 and 3 months since its application.
In this sense, the binding tax ruling V1376-16, issued by the Spanish General Tax Directorate dated on April 4, 2016, analyses the case of an Spanish company that carried out several acquisitions of goods in Austria while it handled its inclusion into the VIES registry, and by which paid Austrian VAT. Once approved its inclusion into the VIES registry with retroactive effect, the Spanish company submitted this query before the Spanish General Tax Directorate to find out how the VAT paid could be deducted.
So the Austrian entity can be considered supply of goods to the Spanish society as an intra-Community supply of goods, in addition to the intra-Community transport of goods, it should check that Spanish company is a VAT taxpayer established in another EU Member State.
In this regard, article 18 of the Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 282/2011, establishes that the supplier could consider the client as a taxable person established in another EU Member State if the customer provides him with its VAT identification number and this is included in the VIES registry or, if the customer shows the vendor that it is a VAT tax payer even though it has not even included in the VIES registry but it has been requested the inclusion and is being managed.
However, in this case, the Spanish company did not informed the Austrian supplier that it had requested the inclusion in the VIES registry, so the Austrian company directly charged the Austrian VAT not to consider the transaction as an intra-Community supply of goods.
Then, this Spanish Directorate proposes to the Spanish company, once it has been included in the VIES registry, with retroactive effect, that ask the Austrian supplier to rectify the invoice according to Austrian law, handed down so that the transaction should be considered as an intra-Community supply of goods, and therefore do not include Austrian VAT in the invoice.
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