VAT treatment of services provided jointly to the maintenance of a website
Binding tax ruling V0397-17, issued by the Spanish General Tax Directorate of February 14 2017.
The consultant is a Spanish company that renders, a company located in Iceland, services consisting of maintenance of a website that includes the global translation of queries of customers and global attention in Spanish.
To qualify for these services, article 69, paragraph three of the Spanish VAT Law, establishes that shall be considered as services provided by electronic way “those services consisting of the transmission sent initially and received at destination by means of electronic processing equipment, including digital compression and storage of data, and entirely transmitted, conveyed and received by cable , radio, optical system or other electronic and media, among others, the provision and hosting computer sites.
…….”
The content of the services considered as services provided by electronic way is complemented by the provisions of article 7 and annex I Regulation of implementation (EU) 282-2011 of the Council, of 15 March, laying down the rules for the application of Directive 2006/112/EC.
According to this regulation, both the maintenance of the website and the global translation of queries of customers and global attention in Spanish, have the consideration of services provided by electronic means.
Regarding the location of these services, the same as to be governed by the general rule for B2B services contained in article 69.One.1º of the Spanish VAT Law, i.e. at the premises of the recipient, therefore these services shall not be subject to the Spanish VAT to the extent that its recipient is a company established in Iceland.
However, due to the fact that Iceland is not part of the European VAT territory, should take into consideration the so-called “use and enjoyment rule” included in article 70, paragraph two of the Spanish VAT Law, which mentions that:
“In addition, shall be provided within the Spanish VAT territory the services listed below when, in accordance with the rules of localization applicable to these services, do not understand to be rendered in the EU VAT territory, but its effective use or enjoyment carries out in the Spanish VAT territory:
(…)
4th provided by electronic means, telecommunications, broadcasting and television.”
Therefore, in order to decide whether the use and enjoyment rule is applicable in this case, it is necessary to know if the service is used by the recipient, i.e. the Icelandic company, in operations subject to the Spanish VAT, in which case the service provided by the consultant to the Icelandic company would be located in the Spanish VAT territory.
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