By letters registered with the General Secretariat of the Commission on 22 October 2007 and 27 July 2007, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland requested authorisation to apply special tax measures in relation to the construction and maintenance of certain border bridges between the two countries.

In accordance with Article 395(2) of Directive 2006/112/EC, the Commission informed the other Member States by letter dated 24 October 2007 of the requests made by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland. By letter dated 25 October 2007, the Commission notified the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Poland that it had all the information necessary to consider the requests.

The purpose of the special measure is, for supplies of goods or services and intra-Community acquisitions of goods intended for the construction and maintenance of the cross-border bridges, the bridges, and its construction site in case of building, should be regarded as being entirely within the territory of one of the Member States in accordance with an agreement concluded between them on the division of responsibility for the construction or maintenance of those cross-border bridges.

In the absence of a special measure, it would be necessary, for each supply of goods or services or intra-Community acquisition of goods, to ascertain whether the place of taxation was the Federal Republic of Germany or the Republic of Poland. Work at a border bridge carried out within Germany’s territory would be subject to value added tax in Germany while that carried out within Poland’s territory would be subject to Polish value added tax.

The purpose of the derogation is therefore to simplify the procedure for charging the tax on the construction and maintenance of the bridges in question.

The derogation will have no negative impact on the Community’s own resources provided from value added tax,