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The ruling of November 14, 2022 of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court addresses the issue of the accrual of VAT on the services provided by bankruptcy administrators

The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court has issued, on November 14, 2022, ruling 1476/2022, in cassation appeal 1847/2021, in which it analyzes the accrual of the Value Added Tax in the services provided by bankruptcy administrators.

The question raised was to determine whether the accrual of VAT for the services provided by the bankruptcy administrators occurs at the end of each of the phases of the bankruptcy process or, by On the contrary, it takes place when the bankruptcy proceedings conclude, it being then understood that the bankruptcy administrator provides his services in a continuous and homogeneous manner throughout the bankruptcy procedure, regardless of its different phases, providing a single service.

The High Court proceeds to examine article 75 of the VAT law , as far as the provision of services is concerned, together with different articles of the Bankruptcy Law, regarding individualization of the different functions attributed to the bankruptcy administrators in each of the phases of the bankruptcy and, ultimately, of Royal Decree 1860/2004, of September 6, which establishes the tariff of rights of the bankruptcy administrators , in order to be able to affirm that it is possible to individualize the different functions attributed to the bankruptcy administrators in each of the phases of the bankruptcy, the time of completion of each phase of the same and the credit of the bankruptcy administrator that is due at the end of the phase common.

The answer given by the TS to the question is that, the accrual of the VAT for the services provided by the bankruptcy administrators occurs at the end of each of the phases of the bankruptcy process.

This criterion has been reiterated by the Supreme Court in ruling 1501/2022, of November 16, 2022, appeal 2178/2022

Both sentences can be consulted at the following links: Sentence no. 1476/2022 and Sentence no. 1501/2022 .