28The Court has established the essential characteristics of VAT. Notwithstanding certain differences of wording, it appears from the case-law that there are four such characteristics: it applies generally to transactions relating to goods or services; it is proportional to the price charged by the taxable person in return for the goods and services which he has supplied; it is charged at each stage of the production and distribution process, including that of retail sale, irrespective of the number of transactions which have previously taken place; the amounts paid during the preceding stages of the process are deducted from the tax payable by a taxable person, with the result that the tax applies, at any given stage, only to the value added at that stage and the final burden of the tax rests ultimately on the consumer (see, inter alia, Pelzl and Others, paragraph 21).
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