European Union – Value added tax. Council Directive (EC) 2006/112 should be interpreted as precluding national rules under which a right to deduct VAT was refused to a taxable person on the ground that the trader which had supplied a service to that taxable person had been declared inactive by the tax authorities of a member state, that declaration of inactivity being public and accessible on the internet to any taxable person in that state, in the case where that refusal of the right to deduct was systematic and final, making it impossible to adduce evidence that there had been no tax evasion or loss of tax revenue. The Court of Justice of the European Union so held in a preliminary ruling in proceedings concerning the denial by the tax authorities of a right to deduct VAT paid on the supplies of services.