KHO 2025:61 ja neuvonantokulujen arvonlisäveron vähennysoikeuden kohdentaminen osakekaupassa

This thesis examines the allocation of input VAT deduction rights in share acquisition contexts through the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court’s decision KHO 2025:61. Within EU VAT law, the right to deduct arises ’in so far as’ goods and services are used for taxable transactions. In holding structures, however, acquisition-related advisory services frequently serve both the holding company’s taxable management activity and the investment interests of the shareholder level. This dual character creates structural tension between neutrality and the limits of deductibility. The thesis adopts a doctrinal and legal-policy methodology. The analysis is grounded in the VAT Directive, the Finnish Value Added Tax Act, and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Finnish Supreme Administrative Court. The thesis argues that KHO 2025:61 does not alter the substantive scope of the right to deduct but refines its methodological framework. The decision rejects both automatic full deduction based solely on taxable person status and categorical denial based on the formal link to a share transaction. Instead, it affirms a service-specific and proportionate allocation analysis based on the objective economic use of the acquisition. The thesis makes three contributions. First, it systematises the normative structure governing deduction in holding-based acquisitions, distinguishing taxable person status from allocation analysis. Second, it conceptualises KHO 2025:61 as a methodological shift from structural assumptions toward substantiated economic allocation. Third, it evaluates the implications of the decision for legal certainty from the perspective of both the internal system of VAT deduction rights and EU law. The thesis concludes that KHO 2025:61 represents a methodological consolidation of proportional deduction in the allocation analysis of costs related to share acquisitions. The long-term significance of the decision does not lie in restricting the right of deduction as such, but in how the allocation of the deduction must henceforth be justified and structurally demonstrated.