Germany - Preliminary ruling requested from ECJ
Preliminary ruling requested from ECJ on limitation of the exemption for portfolio managment to managment of investment funds.
On 31 January 2011, the German Federal Finance Court (BundesFinanzhof) requested a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Finanzamt Frankfurt am Main V-Höchst v Deutsche Bank AG (Case C-44/11).
The referring Court wishes to know whether:
The management of securities-based assets (portfolio management), where a taxable person determines for remuneration the purchase and sale of securities and implements that determination by buying and selling the securities, is exempt from tax
- only in so far as it consists in the management of investment funds for a number of investors collectively within the meaning of Art. 135(g) of the EU VAT Directive or also
- in so far as it consists in individual portfolio management for individual investors within the meaning of Art. 135(1)(f) of the EU VAT Directive (transactions in securities or the negotiation of such transactions)?
For the purposes of defining principal and ancillary services, what significance is to be attached to the criterion that the ancillary service does not constitute for customers an aim in itself, but a means of better enjoying the principal service supplied, in the context of separate invoicing for the ancillary service and the fact that the ancillary service can be provided by third parties?"
Does Article 56(1)(e) of Directive 2006/112/EC cover only the services referred to in Article 135(1)(a) to (g) of Directive 2006/112/EC or also the management of securities-based assets (portfolio management), even if that transaction is not subject to the latter provision?"
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