Last week, we described a ruling in which the Zeeland-West Brabant District Court ruled that expenses incurred by a BV for advice on business succession do not qualify as deductible expenses from the BV's profits for corporate income tax purposes. See our article Advisory fees not deductible.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned court issued its ruling published in the same case, but now deciding whether the BV can deduct the VAT incurred on the expenses as input tax.
Following on from the corporate tax ruling, the Court concluded that the advisory costs were not business expenses of the BV. Not the BV is the buyer of the services provided by the advisers, but the shareholder (since the shareholder is not a VAT entrepreneur, there is no right to deduct VAT there).
In addition, the Court held that there was no direct and immediate link between the consultancy costs and the economic activities of the BV.
The judgment in the VAT case was delivered on 28 August 2025, so the appeal period has not yet expired for this case either.
We are curious to see whether a trilogy will be completed by the fact that (the publication of) a judgment of the District Court on whether there was a (disguised) dividend distribution for income tax purposes will also follow.