EU court rejects telecom firms VAT claim after licence auctions
Published June 27th, 2007
The European Union’s highest court ruled Tuesday that some of the world’s leading mobile phone operators have no right to recover value-added taxes from the auction of third-generation licenses in Britain and Austria.
The Luxembourg-based court said such licensing did not constitute an economic activity and, hence, did not fall within the scope of VAT regulations.
In Britain, a total of €38 billion in licenses were allocated to a series of operators, including T-Mobile Ltd. and Vodafone Group Services Ltd. In Austria, similar licenses were put up for auction for €830 million.
