European Union – Value added tax. The Court of Justice of the European Union gave a preliminary ruling, deciding that art 22(8) of Sixth Council Directive (EEC) 77/388/, as amended, in the version resulting from art 28h of that Sixth Directive, and the first sub-paragraph of art 28c(A)(a) and art 28c(A)(d) of that directive had to be interpreted as precluding a tax authority of the member state of origin from refusing to exempt an intra-Community transfer from VAT on the ground that the taxable person has not provided a VAT identification number issued by the member state of destination, where there was no specific evidence of tax evasion, the goods had been moved to another member state and the other conditions of exemption from tax were also met.