The VAT Directive’s commissionaire fictions (Articles 14(2), point (c), and 28) transform intermediaries’ agency services into deemed consecutive supplies of goods or services thereby averting broken deduction chains and double taxation. Yet, divergent texts and evolving CJEU case law create uncertainty: the Court treated the identity of supplies as a legal consequence in earlier cases, however, recent judgments deem it a prerequisite; formal indicators yield to economic powers; and certain textual elements of Article 14(2), point (c) remain unexplored. This article focuses on the precise conditions for applying the commissionaire fictions and analyses how the CJEU interprets them. It synthesizes the Court’s jurisprudence and identifies three autonomous conditions: (1) agency; (2) acting in one’s own name but on behalf of another; and (3) identity of supplies. The analysis harmonizes the fictions’ texts and endorses Terra and Kajus’ reading of Article 14(2), point (c) as Article 28’s counterpart thereby resolving doctrinal tensions and clarifying application to complex multi-party business relationships.
Intertax