Herdijk. Liability for VAT debts. EU law does not preclude Dutch legislation on obligation to notify the inability to pay a tax debt. Court of Justice

Judgment of the Court of Justice in the case Herdijk. Article 273 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which a director of an entity which has not complied with the obligation to notify its inability to pay a value added tax debt must, in order to be relieved of his or her joint and several liability for the payment of that debt, demonstrate that the failure to comply with that notification obligation is not attributable to him or her, in so far as the legislation in question does not limit the possibility of demonstrating that circumstance solely to cases of force majeure, but allows the director to raise any circumstance capable of showing that he or she is not responsible for the failure to comply with that notification obligation.<br/><br/>Article 273 of Directive 2006/112 must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation which has the effect that the director of an entity which has failed to notify the latter’s inability to pay remains jointly and severally liable for the payment of a value added tax debt relating to a particular period, whereas he or she has been released from a debt on the same basis related to an immediately following period after being able to demonstrate that he or she acted in good faith and exhibited, during the previous three years, all the due diligence required of a circumspect trader in order to prevent the entity from being unable to honour its obligations and his or her participation in abuse or fraud is excluded.