In derogation to their former practice, the German tax authorities nowadays consider the supply of blood plasma to be exempt from VAT purposes irrespective of its actual use. However, on 24 March 2015, the Hessian Finance Court decided to submit to the Court of Justice of the European Union the question of whether article 132(1)(d) of the VAT Directive must be interpreted as exempting blood plasma from VAT. In this article, the authors provide a method-based interpretation of the national exemption regulations, demonstrating that the intended use of the supply of blood plasma has to be considered carefully.