As previously mentioned in our news article “United Kingdom – Only the owner of the goods can recover import VAT, it can be deduced from the general conditions for VAT deduction laid down in Directive 2006/112/EC that import VAT can only be recovered by the owner of the imported goods.
This principle has just been recalled by the Court of Justice of the European Union (EUCJ). In this case, the goods had been imported not by their owner, but by his reconditioning service provider.
Once repackaged, the goods were resold by their owner to European customers. The reconditionning service provider then attempted to deduct import VAT but was refused on the ground that he could not be regarded as having used the imported goods for the purposes of his own economic activity.
Source: Court of Justice of the European Union (in French)
