On 20 February 2026, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in ECLI:NL:HR:2026:279 that a Dutch fine cannot rest on the evasion of VAT in another Member State.
The case
Between 1 January 2014 and 30 June 2016, a Dutch dealer sold used cars on invoices to customers in Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia, and applied the zero rate. According to the court of appeal, the cars went to Berlin, and the dealer knew this and manipulated the evidence to hide it. The tax inspector refused the zero rate and imposed fines. He also said, more than once, that the dealer's intent was not aimed at underpaying Dutch VAT, but at evading VAT in another Member State.
The ruling
The VAT assessment stood. The challenge to the refusal of the zero rate failed, and the Supreme Court gave no reasons on that part.
The fines did not stand. Article 67f of the Dutch General Tax Act covers national taxes payable on a return in the Netherlands. It does not extend to taxes payable in another Member State. For intent, the taxable person must have known, or knowingly accepted a considerable chance, that too little Dutch VAT would be paid.
Putting the common VAT system at risk is not the same thing. The case law of the Court of Justice on fraud concerns the VAT consequences. It says nothing about how a national penalty provision must be read. The Supreme Court annulled the fines. The inspector's alternative ground, gross negligence, failed for the same reason.
What to check
- Keep the tax and the penalty apart. The zero rate can be lost through fraud in the chain, while a Dutch fine still needs its own legal basis.
- Look closely at what the inspector says the intent was aimed at. That decided this case.
- This ruling concerns the Dutch administrative fine. It does not address what other Member States or criminal law may do.
mr. J. el Khalfioui LL.M.