Before a vehicle is put into use, it must be registered in the Vehicle Register. In connection with the registration, registration tax must be paid. The registration tax is calculated based on the value of the vehicle. As a general rule, the full registration tax is paid upon the vehicle’s first registration.

For leasing companies that commercially lease vehicles to private individuals and legal entities, there is, however, the possibility of obtaining permission from the Danish Motor Agency to instead pay the registration tax on a proportional basis. In that case, the proportional registration tax must be paid for the entire duration of the leasing agreement at the time the leasing agreement is entered into.

As a lessor, it is not possible to register a vehicle before a signed leasing agreement is available. In the specific case, there was a number of leasing agreements entered into during a period before digital signatures became widespread. As it was desirable to keep the option of renewing the leasing contracts open, for practical reasons the lessee was asked to sign partially completed leasing contracts for periods 2 and 3 at the time when the leasing agreement for period 1 was entered into. The lessor only signed the contract for period 1, but not for periods 2 and 3. For periods 2 and 3, the leasing contracts thus only became relevant if the parties later agreed to renew the leasing agreement, in which case the lessor would sign the contracts for period 2 and possibly period 3.

The Danish Motor Agency subsequently argued that the leasing agreements for periods 1, 2 and 3 respectively should be regarded as one combined agreement. This viewpoint had the effect that the proportional registration tax had to be paid for all three periods at the time when the leasing agreement for period 1 was entered into. As the leasing company had only paid proportional registration tax for 12 months, corresponding to the leasing period that the parties had both formally and actually agreed upon, the Danish Motor Agency required the full registration tax to be paid.

In its decision of 10 March 2021, the National Tax Tribunal determined that the leasing agreements for the first, second and third leasing periods should not be considered a single combined leasing agreement. It was therefore correct that the leasing company treated each contract separately, which also meant that it was correct for the leasing company to calculate the registration tax based on the current value of the vehicle prior to each individual period.

The National Tax Tribunal found that the partially completed leasing contracts should be regarded as the lessee’s request to the company to submit an offer for a new leasing agreement. There was therefore no actual offer from the leasing company to enter into a new leasing agreement. In its decision, the National Tax Tribunal placed particular emphasis on the fact that the leasing contracts were only signed by the lessee for practical reasons, and it was also considered significant that neither the company nor the lessee regarded themselves as being bound by the partially completed leasing contracts.