The German Federal Ministry of Finance (MoF) has published a decree (dated October 4, 2018) with respect to the VAT treatments of mandatory rebates.

Within this decree, the MoF states that mandatory rebates according to the drug discount law (“Arzneimittelrabattgesetz”) do entitle the taxpayer to reduce the relevant tax base for VAT purposes. Whereas the MoF implements the case law of the European Court of Justice (“Boehringer Case” – EUGH C-462/16, 20 December 2017) and the German Federal Court of Finance (“FCT V R 42/15, 8 February 2018”), the MoF does not go beyond the clear legal opinion of the courts. Other questions, e.g. related to other rebate schemes (e.g. related to tenders or equivalent), are not in the scope of this decree. The new opinion is applicable to all open cases.

If relevant you need to explore whether you could apply for amendments of respective VAT returns and should consider to even applying (under disclosure towards the tax authorities) rebates to private health insurance’s which are not (yet) covered by the above mentioned new decree.

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