tag: tax audit

There is no use of winning a lawsuit against the tax authority if the enterprise goes bankrupt before the judgement is rendered. And such an outcome is by no means uncommon, as under the current laws the tax authority can initiate enforcement proceedings against a business while the suit is still in progress. What’s more, experience shows that the tax authority doesn’t shy away from enforcement even in the absence of the solid legal grounds for pursuing that route.

In its latest decision, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that the Hungarian tax authority (NAV) unlawfully refused to allow VAT deduction to taxpayers who could not have known that the invoice’s issuer was implied in tax fraud. A special twist in the so-called Signum case is that it was the court of first instance who referred the case to the ECJ, as opposed to the guidelines of Hungary’s supreme court. The decision will have a significant bearing on ongoing tax audits and tax-authority findings, especially in the agricultural and trade sectors.