44The Court has previously held that the question whether the VAT on an earlier or later sale of the goods concerned has or has not been paid to the public purse is irrelevant to the right of the taxable person to deduct input VAT (judgment of 12 January 2006, Optigen and Others, C‑354/03, C‑355/03 and C‑484/03, EU:C:2006:16, paragraph 54). As the Direktor claimed, requiring the company concerned to actually pay the VAT due constitutes, for that company, an obstacle to deduction of the input VAT, since it requires that company to commit funds and obliges the tax authorities to return those funds when it re-registers, whereas other traders who hold assets may use them for their economic activities without being required to make such payment.
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