The situation
A tour operator’s package tours, bought-in services and own staff
A tour operator in Valencia sells ski weeks in Tyrol: flights, hotels and lift passes bought from other businesses, plus its own Spanish-speaking ski guides. Most customers are families. This winter it also sold an incentive trip to a pharmaceutical company in Madrid for 120 staff.
The client wants a memo before the season starts. The hours go on drawing the line: which supplies fall in the scheme, how the margin is computed, whether the corporate trip is treated differently, and where the operator’s own guides are taxed.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- One supply, taxed where the operator is
- When an operator deals with customers in its own name and uses supplies bought from other businesses for the traveller’s direct benefit, the transaction is treated as a single service taxed where the operator has established its business.
- Only the margin is taxed
- The taxable amount is the margin: the price paid by the customer, net of VAT, less the cost of the bought-in supplies. VAT charged on those supplies, such as on the Austrian hotels, is not deductible.
- The customer, not the traveller
- In Commission v Spain (C-189/11) the Court of Justice held that the scheme applies whoever the customer is, including a business buying a trip for its staff. National implementation, including any options for business customers, is part of the research.
- In-house elements stay outside
- Services the operator provides with its own means fall outside the scheme and follow the normal rules. A package mixing both must be split. Bought-in travel services enjoyed outside the EU are exempt within the scheme.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Spanish tour operator sells ski weeks in Tyrol: bought-in flights, hotels and lift passes, plus its own employed ski guides. Customers are families and one Spanish company buying for staff. What falls in the margin scheme, how is the margin computed, and where are the guides taxed?
You start with
A tour operator’s package tours, bought-in services and own staff
- 01
Lay out the package
Describe what is bought in, what the operator provides itself and who buys. azta searches the VAT Directive, the Spanish VAT act, the Austrian VAT act and the Court of Justice decisions on the scheme.
Cited research· Free - 02
Find the decisions that shaped the scheme
Ask for the Court of Justice judgments on the customer approach, single services and the margin. azta summarises each and links the full text.
Case-law search - 03
Draft the memo
Ask for a client memo with a table of supplies, in or out of the scheme, and the open questions on the guides. Edit and re-tone it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Send it as Word
Export the memo to Word, add your sign-off and send it to the client before the season opens.
Word export· Pro You send
A memo on the margin scheme: scope, margin, place of supply and the in-house elements
What you get
A memo on the margin scheme: scope, margin, place of supply and the in-house elements
Client memo · draft
Ski weeks in Tyrol: VAT under the margin scheme
Scope. The flights, hotels and lift passes you buy from other businesses and resell in your own name fall within the special scheme for travel agents. The package is treated as one service supplied from Valencia, and Spanish VAT is due on your margin only.
Corporate trips. The incentive trip sold to the Madrid company also falls within the scheme. The Court of Justice has held that the scheme applies whatever the status of the customer. We set out in the annex how Spanish law treats business customers and whether any option is open to you.
Your own guides. The guiding is provided with your own staff and sits outside the scheme. It may fall under the rule for sporting or educational activities, which taxes a service where it physically takes place. If so, it would be taxable in Austria. We recommend we confirm this before the first departure.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
10 minutes a month
At €170 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 43
- Capacity at your rate
- €7,344
- More margin scheme memos a quarter
- 1.5
- Return on Pro
- 22.7×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
Want these numbers on your team’s real workload?
Book a demoWhat stays with you
- The facts of each package: who supplies what, and in whose name.
- The position on the guides and on any option for business customers.
- The advice you sign and the client relationship.
Frequently asked questions
- Does azta compute the margin?
- No. It explains how the margin is defined and what goes into it, with citations. The computation from the client’s figures stays with you.
- Can the memo carry our firm’s letterhead?
- On Enterprise, firm templates apply your letterhead, fonts and disclaimers. On Pro, export to Word and apply them there.
- Can I upload the client’s supplier contracts?
- Yes, on Pro. azta reads them and refers back to the passages it relied on, which helps decide what is bought in and what is in-house.
