Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Freedom of movement for persons – Workers – Provisions of the Treaty – Scope ratione personae

(Art. 39 EC)

2. Citizens of the European Union – Provisions of the Treaty – Scope ratione personae

(Arts 17(1) EC and 18(1) EC)

3. Citizens of the European Union – Right to freely move and reside within the territory of the Member State – Tax legislation

(Art. 18 EC; Council Regulation No 1408/71)

Summary

1. Persons who have carried out all their occupational activity in the Member State of which they are nationals and who have exercised the right to reside in another Member State only after their retirement, without any intention of working in that other State, cannot rely on freedom of movement as a worker.

(see para. 52)

2. Persons who, after retirement, leave the Member State of which they are nationals and in which they have carried out all their occupational activity in order to set up residence in another Member State enjoy the status of a citizen of the Union established by Article 17(1) EC and may, therefore, rely if necessary on the rights conferred on those having that status. They exercise the right which Article 18(1) EC confers on every citizen of the European Union to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States.

(see paras 55‑56)

3. Article 18(1) EC precludes legislation of a Member State which makes the granting of a right to a reduction of income tax by the amount of health insurance contributions paid conditional on payment of those contributions in that Member State on the basis of national law and results in the refusal to grant such a tax advantage where the contributions liable to be deducted from the amount of income tax due in that Member State have been paid under the compulsory health insurance scheme of another Member State.

Such legislation introduces a difference in the treatment of resident taxpayers in that only taxpayers whose health insurance contributions are paid in the Member State of taxation benefit from the right to a reduction of the tax at issue. With regard to the taxation of their income in the Member State concerned, resident taxpayers paying contributions to the health insurance scheme of that State and those falling within a compulsory health insurance scheme of another Member State are not in objectively different situations capable of justifying such a difference in treatment according to the place where the contributions are paid, inasmuch as they are subject to an unlimited liability to tax in the Member State of taxation. Such national legislation, disadvantaging nationals of a Member State who have exercised their freedom of movement by leaving the Member State in which they have carried out all their occupational activity in order to take up residence in the Member State concerned, amounts to a restriction on the freedoms conferred by Article 18(1) EC on every citizen of the Union.

Such a restriction cannot be justified by the fact, on the one hand, that the compulsory insurance institution of the other Member State covers only costs of benefits actually provided to the resident taxpayer paying his compulsory health insurance scheme contributions to that institution and, on the other hand, that only when that taxpayer is in receipt of healthcare benefits do his contributions contribute to the health insurance scheme of the Member State concerned. To the extent to which the rules concerning both insurance under a particular social insurance scheme of citizens entitled to freedom of residence and the payment of social insurance contributions relating to that scheme are directly established by the provisions of Regulation No 1408/71, it must be held that a Member State cannot treat less favourably the residence and the taxation of resident taxpayers who, in reliance on the provisions of that regulation, pay contributions to the social insurance scheme of another Member State.

(see paras 67-69, 72-73, 78, 85, 87, operative part)