Following the request for a preliminary ruling from the German Supreme Tax Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is called to decide whether a German parent company has the right to deduct from its taxable income losses incurred by its UK branch, which had ceased activity and thus could no longer utilize its accumulated tax losses in the UK. In his Opinion, the Advocate General has suggested that the German rules denying the import of losses of foreign branches are not contrary to the EU principles of freedom of establishment.
The ECJ held that services by an EU head office, who is part of a VAT group, to its foreign branch are in general subject to VAT if the cost of such services are charged to the branch. For VAT purposes head office and its branch located in another Member State must be regarded as separate taxable persons.
