Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Tax provisions - Harmonisation of laws - Turnover taxes - Common system of value added tax - Exemptions provided for by the Sixth Directive - Exemption for insurance and reinsurance transactions - Definition - Provision of insurance cover, including assistance, by a taxable person not himself the insurer - Covered

(Council Directives 73/239, annex, and 77/388, Art. 13B(a))

2 Tax provisions - Harmonisation of laws - Turnover taxes - Common system of value added tax - Supplies of services - Transactions comprising several elements - Transaction to be regarded as a single supply or as distinct supplies - Criteria - Transactions to be classified on a case-by-case basis by the national courts

(Council Directive 77/388, Art. 2(1))

3 Tax provisions - Harmonisation of laws - Turnover taxes - Common system of value added tax - Exemptions provided for by the Sixth Directive - Exemption for insurance and reinsurance transactions - Scope - Restricted exclusively to transactions regarded as lawful in national law - Not permissible

(Council Directive 77/388, Art. 13B(a))

Summary

1 Article 13B(a) of Sixth Directive 77/388, relating to the exemption from value added tax of insurance and reinsurance transactions, must be interpreted as meaning that a taxable person, not being an insurer, who, in the context of a block policy of which he is the holder, procures for his customers, who are the insured, insurance cover from an insurer who assumes the risk covered, performs an insurance transaction within the meaning of that provision. The term `insurance' in that provision extends to the categories of assistance listed in the annex to First Directive 73/239 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the taking-up and pursuit of the business of direct insurance other than life assurance.

2 In order to determine, for the purposes of value added tax, whether a supply of services which comprises several elements is to be regarded as a single supply or as two or more distinct supplies to be assessed separately, it must be taken into account, first, that it follows from Article 2(1) of Sixth Directive 77/388 that every supply of a service must normally be regarded as distinct and independent and, second, that a supply which comprises a single service from an economic point of view should not be artificially split, so as not to distort the functioning of the system of value added tax.

There is a single supply in particular in cases where one or more elements are to be regarded as constituting the principal service, whilst one or more elements are to be regarded, by contrast, as ancillary services which share the tax treatment of the principal service. A service must be regarded as ancillary to a principal service if it does not constitute for customers an aim in itself, but a means of better enjoying the principal service supplied. In those circumstances, the fact that a single price is charged is not decisive.

In the case of a plan intended to protect holders of credit cards against financial loss and inconvenience resulting from the loss of their cards, and providing inter alia an insurance supply and a card registration service, it is for the national court to determine, in the light of the above criteria, whether such transactions are to be regarded as comprising two independent supplies, or whether one of those two supplies is the principal supply to which the other is ancillary, so that it receives the same tax treatment as the principal supply.

3 Article 13B(a) of Sixth Directive 77/388, relating to the exemption from value added tax of insurance and reinsurance transactions, must be interpreted as meaning that a Member State may not restrict the scope of the exemption exclusively to supplies by insurers who are authorised by national law to pursue the activity of insurer.

As that provision, in accordance with the principle of fiscal neutrality, makes no distinction between lawful and unlawful transactions in national law, those two categories of transaction must be treated in the same fashion.