On December 15, 2022, the Central Economic-Administrative Court ( TEAC ) has issued two resolutions in unification of criteria (RG 05825/2022 and RG 06997/2022) related to the possible exemption and, where applicable, VAT tax rate, applicable to the activity of renting chairs or boxes to attend the Holy Week processions.

The arguments and criteria of these two resolutions are as follows:

The TEAC considers that the Holy Week processions are covered by article 20.One.14.d) of Law 37/1992, of December 28, on Value Added Tax, since there is no doubt about the religious and cultural nature of the Holy Week processions.

However, these are two different services: attendance at processional parades and the rental of chairs or boxes that allow you to watch the parade from a seated position.

If public access to the procession along the Official Route were free and open to the public, that is, if anyone could watch the parade without having to pay for it, then certainly, the people who paid to rent a chair or box would not do so to see the procession - with free and open access - but to be able to watch it sitting down.

However, if access to the processional parade along the Official Route were not free and open to the public, that is, said parade could only be seen by those who had paid the corresponding price, then they would not be two different services (a free and open access cultural service consisting of the processional parades and a paid service for renting seats and boxes), but rather a single service provided by the taxpayer as the body responsible for regulating all the Holy Week processions, consisting of granting, upon payment, access to a restricted area of the processional route through the city, the so-called Official Route, in order to watch the Holy Week parades of all the brotherhoods that participate in it.

In the appeals, the TEAC does not consider it proven whether public access to the processional parade was free and open to the public, but, given the possibility that both situations may occur, the TEAC establishes the following criteria for each of them:

1. 1. When viewing the processional parades along the so-called Official Route during Holy Week is not free and open to the public, that is, it is reserved exclusively for those people who pay for it, the sale of season tickets for seats and boxes to watch such parades while seated constitutes a service subject to, but exempt from, Value Added Tax. It will be understood that viewing of the processional parades is not reserved exclusively for those who pay when the public who do not pay, even without having access to the seating or box areas, could view the processional parades normally throughout the entire Official Race or part of it, due to the absence of any relevant obstacle preventing them from doing so.

   2. On the contrary, if such parades could normally be watched by anyone, by the entire Official Career or by part of it, without having to pay for it, that is, if access to them were free and free, the sale of Subscriptions for chairs and boxes would in such a case constitute a service subject to and not exempt from VAT, subject to taxation at the general rate of 21%.

You can consult the full text of the resolutions in the following links Resolution 05825/2022 and Resolution 06997/2022 .