Stadion Amsterdam CV v Staatssecretaris van Financiën (Secretary of State for Finances, Netherlands), [2018] EUECJ, Case C-463/16 (18 January 2018) (ECJ (9th Chamber))

Stadion Amsterdam provided tours of a stadium and associated facilities. The price of the tour was €10, of which €3.50 corresponded to the price of a visit to the (on site) AFC Ajax museum, which the participants were free to visit at the conclusion of the tour. A separate supply of access to the museum would have been subject to a reduced rather than standard rate of VAT.

In answer to the question referred to it by the Netherlands Supreme Court, the Court concluded (at para. 36):

[A] single supply, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, comprised of two distinct elements, one principal, the other ancillary, which, if they were supplied separately, would be subject to different rates of VAT, must be taxed solely at the rate of VAT applicable to that single supply, that rate being determined according to the principal element, even if the price of each element forming the full price paid by a consumer in order to be able to receive that supply can be identified.

Earlier (at para. 27) after referring to the situation here where “it is possible to identify the price corresponding to each distinct element forming part of the single supply,” the Court stated:

The fact that such identification is possible or that the parties agree on those prices is not capable of justifying an exception to the principles arising from the [single-supply] case-law… .

The operator of a soccer stadium had been found to be making a single supply of tours notwithstanding that participants were entitled at the conclusion of their tour to visit an on-site museum free of additional charge. The ECJ found that this single supply was subject to the general rate of VAT rather than in part being eligible for the lower VAT rate applicable to museum admissions, notwithstanding that the separate value of the two components of the supply could be readily identified.