Source: https://fra.europa.eu/en/caselaw-reference/austria-highest-administrative-court-2012150021
Timestamp: 2020-02-16 19:59:53+00:00

Document:
Austria / Highest Administrative Court / 2012/15/0021 | European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights
Austria / Highest Administrative Court / 2012/15/0021
Claimant v Tax office
Austria / Highest Administrative Court
With request of 5 October 2009 the claimant asked to relieve the enterprise and co-owners of the value added tax in the amount of 153.726,80€ for 1995, as the co-owners did not realize their idea of renting out the houses. This could not be realized, as the enterprise building the houses did not work properly and in the end they had to sell the houses for a really cheap price and suffered loss of several million schillings. The tax office rejected this claim in May 2010. Then the claimant appealed against this decision and among others asked for an oral hearing. The instance rejected this appeal, stating, that not conducting an oral hearing would indeed violate the procedural right of § 284(1) BAO, but because of economical reasons it was not conducted, as the instance would have never reached another decision, even when conducting an oral hearing.
Added value tax procedures fall within the scope of application of union law; therefore, the right to conducting an oral hearing according to Art. 47 (2) CFR applies for such procedures since 1 December 2009. Executing the added value tax act 1994 obviously means acting in “implementation of union law” in the meaning of Art. 51 (1) CFR, therefore the fundamental rights of the charter have to be taken into account. As also the dealing with request to relieve of added value tax and insofar to implementation of union law is to be counted in the sense of Art. 51 (1) CFR, the application of the CFR is to be assumed for this case (see the judgments of the European Court of Justice of 26 February 2013, C-617/10, Fransson, point 19 et seq., 25 et seqq. as well as 17 July 2008, C-132/06, Commission/Italy). The administrative procedure is therefore inadequate in this case and leads to a repeal of the challenged decisions according to § 42 (2) Z3 VwGH.
Umsatzsteuerverfahren fallen in den Anwendungsbereich des Unionrechts; jedenfalls für solche Abgabenverfahren ergibt sich daher seit 1. Dezember 2009 aus Art. 47 Abs 2 GRC das Recht auf Durchführung einer mündlichen Verhandlung. Mit der Vollziehung des UStG 1994 wird augenscheinlich in “Durchführung des Rechts der Union” im Sinne des Art. 51 (1) GRC gehandelt, weshalb auch auf die Verbürgung der Grundrechte der GRC Bedacht zu nehmen ist. Da auch die Behandlung von Nachsichtsanträgen zur Erhebung der Umsatzsteuer und insofern zur Durchführung von Unionsrecht im Sinne von Art. 51 (1) GRC zu zählen, ist auch im Beschwerdefall von einer Anwendbarkeit der GRC auszugehen (vgl. die Urteile des Europäischen Gerichtshofs vom 26. Februar 2013, C-617/10, Fransson, Rn 19 f, 25 ff sowie vom 17. Juli 2008, C-132/06, Kommission/Italien). Das Verwaltungsverfahren ist sohin in den Beschwerdefällen jeweils mit einem wesentlichen Mangel belastet, der gemäß § 42 (2) Z3 VwGH zur Aufhebung der angefochtenen Bescheide führt.

References: § 284
 Art. 47
 Art. 51
 Art. 51
 § 42
 Art. 47
 Art. 51
 Art. 51
 § 42