Order — ECLI:EU:C:2002:492
Date: 2002-09-12
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Right of establishment;Taxation;Free movement of workers
Concepts: Equal treatment
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary of the Order 
Freedom of movement for persons — Workers — Equal treatment — Income tax — 
National legislation limiting, as regards natural persons who are simultaneously self-
employed in the Member State concerned and employed in another Member State, the 
possibility of deducting losses — Not permissible 
(EC Treaty, Art. 48 (now, after amendment, Art. 39 EC)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-431/01 
Article 48 of the Treaty (now, after 
amendment, Article 39 EC) precludes legis­
lation by a Member State under which a 
natural person residing and carrying on a 
self-employed business in that Member 
State may, for the purposes of personal 
taxation, deduct from his taxable profit for 
one year a loss incurred the previous year 
only on the condition that that loss was not 
capable of being set off against remuner­
ation received from employment in another 
Member State during that same previous 
year, when the loss, although set off, 
cannot be deducted from taxable income 
in either of the Member States concerned, 
whereas it would be deductible if that 
person had been both self-employed and 
employed exclusively in the Member State 
in which he is resident. Such legislation 
establishes differentiated tax treatment as 
between taxpayers who exercise all their 
activities exclusively on national territory 
and those who are self-employed in that 
Member State and employed in another 
Member State. 
(see paras 29, 40, operative part) 
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