Brussels, 21/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - The German taxman cannot demand repayment by German supermarket chain Netto of VAT mistakenly refunded to customers. Although these refunds were obtained fraudulently by the customers, the Court of Justice ruled on 21 February that Netto could not, “even by exercising due commercial care”, have known that there was false pretence (case C-271/06), and need not, therefore, repay the illegal VAT refunds to the tax authorities.
Between 1992 and 1998,...