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Vakaru Baltijos Laivu Statykla to recover excise duty for fuel

BC, Vilnius, 06.10.2017.Print version
Vakaru Baltijos Laivu Statykla (Western Baltija Shipbuilding), a Lithuanian group indirectly controlled by Estonia's BLRT Grupp, will recover the excise duty paid for fuel supplied to a freight ship it built back in 2013, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has said in a final ruling, cites LETA.

As a follow-up to the opinion issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in mid-July, the Lithuanian court ruled on Oct. 5 that the State Tax Inspectorate would have to pay back 24,300 euros to the company as a reimbursement of the excise duty charged on vessel fuel.


In June 2013, Vakaru Baltijos Laivu Statykla delivered a completed freight ship to an unnamed Estonian company, including 73,000 liters of fuel left after the ship testing. The ship sailed from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda to Germany's Stralsund without freight before being loaded with a commercial cargo and heading to Santander in Spain.


In July of the same year, the shipbuilding company turned to the State Tax Inspectorate for a refund of the excise duty charged on fuel, which had been shipped out of Lithuania. However, the application was turned down. The inspectorate then said that the shipbuilding company had failed to duly prepare the required accounting records and had not been authorized to supply fuel to ships.


After the dispute moved to courts, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania had turned to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling. The latter found that the route from Klaipeda to Stralsund should be listed as a navigation operation.






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