In intra-Community triangular transactions, failure to include the wording “reverse charge” on the invoice precludes the application of the simplification scheme. Adding that wording years later does not allow the benefit to be claimed for transactions already completed, even through a VAT adjustment in the year of correction.
In its Judgment of 7 October 2026, Case T-773/25, the General Court of the European Union examined the case of an Austrian company that purchased goods from Swedish and Danish suppliers for resale to customers identified for VAT purposes in other Member States, with the goods dispatched directly from the suppliers to the final recipients.
The original invoices had been issued without VAT but did not designate the final customer as the person liable for payment of the tax. The company subsequently amended the invoices and corrected its recapitulative statements, seeking to adjust its VAT position in the year in which the corrections were made.
The General Court clarified that designating the recipient as the person liable for VAT is a substantive requirement of the simplification scheme, which allows the intermediary, subject to the prescribed conditions, to avoid VAT registration in the Member State of destination.
The subsequent addition of the missing wording therefore does not constitute a mere correction of a formal defect. Rather, it amounts to the first issue of an invoice that meets the requirements of the scheme. Where this occurs several years after the transactions, it does not allow the simplification scheme to be applied to the earlier supplies, whether retroactively or through an adjustment in the current or a future tax period.
