With this judgment, the EUCJ confirms its long-standing case law on complex services. In the present case, the price paid by the customer for the visit of the Ajax Amsterdam Football Club Stadium also included the visit of the museum. For the purpose of VAT, the company had considered that two different services were rendered to the customers. The Court ruled that there is a single supply where two or more elements or acts supplied by a taxable person to a customer are so closely linked that they form, objectively, a single, indivisible economic supply, which it would be artificial to split.
The Court bases its analysis on a bundle of elements in order to determine what a consumer intends to benefit for: a single service or several separate services.
It should be pointed out that French courts, and notably the Administrative Court of Appeal of Lyon, seem to take into account the optional nature of the ancillary service as a determining factor in order to conclude that the supplies are distinct, whereas this element remains only a clue for the EUCJ.
