The situation
A tooling agreement for moulds built and kept at a supplier in another member state
A German maker of household appliances in Bielefeld orders an injection mould from its plastics supplier in Bydgoszcz. The supplier builds the mould, invoices it separately and keeps it in Poland to produce housings for Bielefeld. A second mould, owned by the German company, is about to be shipped from Germany to the same supplier.
Finance needs a note before the invoices arrive. Each mould raises the same questions in a different order: is there a supply of goods, where are the goods when it happens, is there a transfer of own goods across a border, and is the mould part of the parts supply or separate. The answer decides whose VAT, in which country and on which return.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- Unmoved goods are supplied where they are
- When goods are sold without being dispatched, the supply takes place where they are when ownership passes. A mould built and kept in Poland points to a Polish supply with Polish VAT, unless it is part of another supply.
- Separate supply or part of the parts
- The Court of Justice’s case law on single and composite supplies decides whether the mould is a supply of its own or ancillary to the later supply of parts. The contract, the separate price and the transfer of ownership all weigh in.
- Moving your own mould across a border
- Sending your own goods to another member state is generally treated as an intra-Community transfer, with an acquisition in the destination country. The VAT Directive lists narrow exceptions, and whether a mould used by a supplier fits one is a question the research must settle on the facts.
- The end of production is a separate event
- When the run ends, the mould is scrapped, sold to the supplier or sent back. Each outcome has its own VAT treatment, and the agreement should say which will happen.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
A Polish supplier builds an injection mould for our German company, invoices it separately and keeps it in Poland to make parts for us. We also send our own second mould from Germany to the same supplier. What is the VAT treatment of each mould, and do we need to register or report anything in Poland?
You start with
A tooling agreement for moulds built and kept at a supplier in another member state
- 01
Upload the tooling agreement
Add the agreement and the supplier’s quote. azta reads the ownership, payment and return clauses and points back to the passage it relied on.
File upload· Pro - 02
Research each mould
Ask about the two moulds separately. azta cites the VAT Directive and the Polish and German VAT acts on supplies of goods and transfers of own goods.
Cited research· Free - 03
Find the decisions on composite supplies
Ask for Court of Justice and national decisions on whether tooling is separate from the parts. azta summarises them and links each to the full text.
Case-law search - 04
Write the note
Ask for a short note per mould with the treatment, the invoice requirements and the open questions. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro You send
A VAT treatment note for each mould and for the parts made with it
What you get
A VAT treatment note for each mould and for the parts made with it
VAT note · draft
Moulds at the Bydgoszcz supplier: VAT treatment
Mould 1, built and kept in Poland. Ownership passes to us while the mould stays in Poland. With a separate price and a separate transfer of ownership, we treat it as a supply of goods located in Poland, and the supplier’s invoice with Polish VAT is consistent with that. We will confirm how we recover that VAT before the invoice is paid.
Mould 2, sent from Germany. The mould stays our property and is moved to Poland for the supplier to use in making our parts. We need to establish whether this is a transfer of own goods that requires a Polish registration or whether an exception applies. It should not be shipped until that is settled.
Parts. Supplies of finished housings from Poland to Germany remain intra-Community supplies by the supplier and acquisitions by us. If mould 1 were treated as part of those supplies instead, it would follow the same treatment; the agreement as drafted points the other way.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
20 minutes a month
At €85 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
- 32
- Capacity at your rate
- €2,754
- More tooling VAT notes a quarter
- 1.5
- Return on Pro
- 8.5×
- 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 demoSources azta searches here
- EUR-Lex · Curia
- Dziennik Ustaw
- Gesetze im Internet
- Rechtsprechung im Internet
What stays with you
- Establishing who owns each mould, and when ownership passes, from the contract and the facts.
- The position taken where the treatment is arguable.
- Agreeing invoicing with the supplier before the first invoice is raised.
Frequently asked questions
- Is there a specific EU rule for tooling?
- No dedicated rule. The answer comes from the general rules on supplies of goods, transfers of own goods and composite supplies, applied to your contract and to each country’s law.
- Can it find Polish decisions on moulds?
- Ask for them. azta searches the published Polish decisions in its source register and links each one to the full text.
- Does azta decide the treatment?
- No. It finds and cites the rules and drafts the note. Where the treatment is arguable, the position is yours.
