Case C‑342/14

X-Steuerberatungsgesellschaft

v

Finanzamt Hannover-Nord

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Bundesfinanzhof)

‛Reference for a preliminary ruling — Recognition of professional qualifications — Directive 2005/36/EC — Article 5 — Freedom to provide services — Directive 2006/123/EC — Articles 16 and 17(6) — Article 56 TFEU — Tax consultancy company established in a Member State and providing services in another Member State — Legislation of a Member State requiring the registration and recognition of tax consultancy companies’

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber), 17 December 2015

Freedom to provide services — Restrictions — Activity of professional assistance in tax matters — National legislation restricting the freedom to provide services of a tax consultancy company established in another Member State and exercising its activity there in an unregulated manner — Failure to take account of the qualifications obtained by that company or by the persons acting on its behalf — Not permissible

(Art. 56 TFEU)

On a proper construction of Article 56 TFEU, legislation of a Member State which defines the conditions of access to the activity of professional assistance in tax matters may not restrict the freedom to provide services of a tax consultancy company — formed in accordance with the law of another Member State in which that company is established, which draws up, in the latter Member State where tax consultancy work is not regulated, a tax return on behalf of a recipient of services in the first Member State and sends that tax return to the tax authority of the first Member State —, without the qualification obtained by that company, or by the natural persons providing services of professional assistance in tax matters for that company, in other Member States being accorded its proper value and being duly taken into account.

By making the exercise, by a tax consultancy company, of the activity of providing professional assistance in tax matters subject to a prior authorisation scheme, an authorisation which is itself subject to its managers having appropriate professional qualification, that legislation excludes all possibility for a tax consultancy company, established in another Member State in which that activity is lawfully carried out without being regulated, of providing its services in the Member State in which access to that activity is regulated. In that regard, while it is true that the restriction of the freedom to provide services may be justified by objectives such as the prevention of tax evasion and the protection of consumers, the legislation at issue must nevertheless allow for a qualification in the field of professional assistance in tax matters obtained by a service provider or by persons acting on its behalf in another Member State to be accorded its proper value and to be duly taken into account.

Moreover, an obligation imposed on a provider of services of professional assistance in tax matters to make a simple prior declaration to the authorities of the Member State in which access to the activity of providing professional assistance in tax matters is regulated and in which that service provider intends to provide such services, of its intention in that regard, would not, as a rule, go beyond what is necessary to achieve the objectives of preventing tax evasion and protecting consumers. Such an obligation would enable those authorities to check the qualification obtained, as the case may be through experience, by that service provider, or by the natural persons providing the service concerned for that service provider, in other Member States in the specific field of taxation in which that service provider intends to exercise its activity.

(see paras 49, 53, 55, 56, 60, operative part)