In his Opinion on the Commission v Germany (C‑616/15) case on whether the VAT cost-sharing exemption has been implemented correctly in the country, AG Wathelet concluded that the Court should

• declare that, by restricting to groups whose members exercise a limited number of professions the exemption for the supply of services by independent groups of persons carrying on an activity which is exempt from VAT, or in relation to which they are not taxable persons, to their members for the direct purposes of the exercise of that activity where those groups merely claim from their members exact reimbursement of their share of the joint expenses, the Federal Republic of Germany has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 132(1)(f) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, and
• order the Federal Republic of Germany to pay the costs.

This Opinion is not a great surprise as Germany was known to have implemented the exemption very narrowly. We await the Court’s full judgment.

Judgment is expected in  Commission v Luxembourg (C-274/15) on 4 May. An AG’s Opinion has indicated that certain aspects of Luxembourg’s operation of the cost sharing exemption are incompatible with EU law, which has resulted in services being incorrectly treated as exempt.

CTG’s Technical Adviser, Graham Elliott, recently commented on the AG Opinions in the cost-sharing exemption cases, Aviva and DNB Banka.

Further details on the cost-sharing exemption can be found here.