Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2010:334
Date: 2010-06-10
Language of the case: English
Court formation: Second Chamber
Subject matter: Taxation;Value added tax
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: United Kingdom

Summary of the Judgment 1. Tax provisions – Harmonisation of laws – Turnover taxes – Common system of value added tax – Exemptions provided for in the Sixth Directive – Exemption for hospital and medical care and closely related activities – Exemption in respect of the provision of medical care in the exercise of the medical and paramedical professions (Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 132(1)(b) and (c)) 2. Tax provisions – Harmonisation of laws – Turnover taxes – Common system of value added tax – Exemptions provided for in the Sixth Directive – Exemption for hospital and medical care and closely related activities (Council Directive 2006/112, Art. 132(1)(b)) 1. When activities consisting in the dispatch of a kit for collecting blood from the umbilical cord of newborn children and in the testing and processing of that blood and, where appropriate, in the storage of stem cells contained in it for possible future therapeutic use, are intended only to ensure that a particular resource will be available for medical treatment in the uncertain event that treatment becomes necessary but not, in themselves, to diagnose, treat or cure diseases or health disorders, such activities, whether taken together or separately, do not come within the concept of ‘hospital and medical care’ in Article 132(1)(b) of Directive 2006/112 on the common system of value added tax, or within that of ‘the provision of medical care’ in Article 132(1)(c) of that directive. It would be otherwise, as regards the analysis of umbilical cord blood, only if such analysis were actually intended to enable a medical diagnosis to be made, which it is for the referring court to determine. (see para. 47, operative part 1) 2. Activities ‘closely related’ to ‘hospital and medical care’, within the meaning of Article 132(1)(b) of Directive 2006/112 on the common system of value added tax, are to be interpreted as not covering activities consisting in the dispatch of a kit for collecting blood from the umbilical cord of newborn children and in the testing and processing of that blood and, where appropriate, in the storage of stem cells contained in it for possible future therapeutic use to which those activities are merely potentially related and which has not been performed, commenced or yet envisaged. (see para. 52, operative part 2)