Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1999:259
Date: 1999-05-20
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Taxation;Value added tax
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
Tax provisions — Harmonisation of laws — Turnover taxes — Common system of value 
added tax — Economic activities within the meaning of Article 4 of the Sixth Directive — 
Independent activity — Meaning — Where tangible property is let to a company or 
partnership by one of its members — Covered — Where such letting constitutes the 
lessor's sole economic activity — Irrelevant 
(Council Directive 77/388, Art. 4(1) and (4)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-23/98 
Article 4(1) of the Sixth Directive (77/388/ 
EEC) on the harmonisation of the laws of 
the Member States relating to turnover 
taxes is to be interpreted as meaning that, 
where a person's sole economic activity, 
within the meaning of that provision, 
consists in the letting of an item of tangible 
property to a company or a partnership of 
which he is a member, that letting must be 
regarded as an independent activity within 
the meaning of that provision. 
In so far as the activity at issue is con­
cerned, there is between the partnership 
and the partner no relationship of employer 
and employee similar to that mentioned in 
the first subparagraph of Article 4(4) of the 
Sixth Directive which would preclude the 
independence of the partner. On the con­
trary, the partner, in letting tangible prop­
erty to the partnership, acts in his own 
name, on his own behalf and under his own 
responsibility, even if he is at the same time 
manager of the lessee partnership. The 
lease in question is granted neither by the 
management nor by the representatives of 
the partnership. In those circumstances, it is 
irrelevant that the partner confines his 
activity to letting an item of tangible 
property to the partnership of which he is 
a member. That circumstance is of no 
consequence for the purpose of determining 
whether the partner is acting indepen­
dently, within the meaning of Article 4(1) 
of the Sixth Directive, in carrying on the 
activity concerned but, may, at most, have 
a bearing on the question whether there can 
be said to be an economic activity at all, 
within the meaning of that article. 
(see paras 18-19 and 22, and operative 
part) 
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