A business owner is claiming a deduction for input VAT. However, part of his records has been lost due to a leak, meaning he is unable to substantiate the input VAT claimed. According to the court, the loss of the records due to a leak is at the entrepreneur’s own risk and expense. As a result, the entrepreneur is unable to specify which amounts on which invoices or receipts relate to taxable supplies. On the basis of the ledger entries, the tax inspector nevertheless allowed part of the input VAT deduction, in which, according to the court, he had acted leniently.
After rain comes sunshine?
With regard to the input VAT on the solar panels, the business owner has stated that these are used for the letting of flats. This constitutes a tax-exempt supply. The business owner has also made no mention of any feed-in of energy to the electricity supplier or the payments received for this. The deduction of input VAT on the solar panels was therefore rightly refused.