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Paragraph 3 of Hotărârea Guvernului nr. 44/2004 pentru aprobarea Normelor metodologice de aplicare a Legii 571/2003 privind Codul fiscal (Government Decision No 44/2004 approving the detailed rules for the implementation of Law No 571/2003 establishing the Tax Code) of 22 January 2004 (M. Of., Part I, No 112/6 February 2004), in the version applicable to the main proceedings, provides: ‘(1) Under Article 127(2) of the Tax Code, the exploitation of tangible or intangible property shall, in accordance with the fundamental principle of the VAT regime whereby the tax must be neutral, cover every kind of transaction, regardless of its legal form, as established by the Court in the cases van Tiem, C‑186/89, C‑306/94, Régie dauphinoise, and C‑77/01, Empresa de Desenvolvimento Mineiro SA (EDM). (2) In accordance with paragraph 1, natural persons shall be deemed not to be carrying out an economic activity subject to VAT in the case where they obtain income from the sale of personally owned dwellings or other property used by them for personal purposes. The category of assets used for personal purposes includes buildings and, as the case may be, the accompanying land, belonging personally to natural persons, which have been used for the purposes of dwellings, including holiday homes and all other assets used privately by the natural person, as well as assets of any type legally inherited or those acquired by the application of corrective measures provided for in the laws on the reconstitution of the right of property. (3) A natural person who has not already become a taxable person in respect of another activity shall be regarded as carrying out an economic activity involving the exploitation of tangible or intangible property if that person acts as such, in an independent manner, and if the activity in question is carried out in order to obtain therefrom income on a continuing basis within the meaning of Article 127(2) of the Tax Code. (4) Where immovable property is constructed by natural persons for the purposes of being sold, the economic activity shall be regarded as having commenced at the time when the natural persons in question formed the intention of carrying out that activity, and their intention must be assessed on the basis of objective factors, such as the fact that they began to incur expenses and/or make preparatory investments with a view to commencing the economic activity. The economic activity shall be regarded as being conducted on a continuing basis from its commencement and shall also include the supply of the immovable property constructed, or parts of that property, even in the case of a single immovable property. (5) Where land and/or buildings are acquired by a natural person for the purposes of being sold, the supply of that property shall be regarded as an economic activity of a continuous nature if the natural person carries out more than one single transaction during a calendar year. However, if the natural person is already constructing immovable property for the purposes of selling it, in accordance with subparagraph 4, since the economic activity is already regarded as having commenced and as being of a continuous nature, every other transaction carried out subsequently shall no longer be capable of being regarded as occasional in nature. Although the first supply shall be considered occasional, if there is a second supply within the same year, the first supply shall not be taxed but shall be taken into account for the calculation of the threshold provided for in Article 152 of the Tax Code. The supply of buildings and of land, exempt from tax in accordance with Article 141(2)(f) of the Tax Code, shall be taken into account both in order to establish the continuous nature of the economic activity and for the calculation of the exemption threshold set out in Article 152 of the Tax Code.’