JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

(Third Chamber)

of 8 December 2005

in Case C-280/04 Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Vestre Landsret (Denmark) Jyske Finans A/S v Skatteministeriet ¹

(Sixth VAT Directive - Article 13B(c) - Exemptions - Exemption of supplies of goods excluded from the right to deduct - Resale of motor cars purchased second-hand by a leasing company - Article 26a - Special arrangements for sales of second-hand goods)

(Language of the case: Danish)

In Case C-280/04: reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 234 EC from the Vestre Landsret (Denmark), made by decision of 25 June 2004, received at the Court on 29 June 2004, in the proceedings pending before that court between Jyske Finans A/S v Skatteministeriet - the Court: (Third Chamber) composed of A. Rosas, President of the Chamber, J. Malenovský (Rapporteur), J.-P. Puissochet, S. von Bahr and U. Lõhmus, Judges; L.A. Geelhoed, Advocate General, H. von Holstein, Deputy Registrar, gave a judgment on 8 December 2005, the operative part of which is as follows:

The provisions of Articles 13B(c) of Sixth Council Directive 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes - Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment, as amended by Council Directive 94/5/EC of 14 February 1994 are to be construed as meaning that they do not preclude a national law which imposes value added tax on transactions by which a taxable person, after having used them for the purposes of its business, resells goods on the acquisition of which, by virtue of Article 17(6), value added tax did not become deductible, even where that acquisition, made from taxable persons who could not declare value added tax, did not, for that reason, give rise to a right to deduct.

Article 26aA(e) of Sixth Directive 77/388, as amended by Directive 94/5, is to be construed as meaning that an undertaking which, in the normal course of its business, resells cars which it had purchased second-hand with a view to using them for the purposes of its business of sale and leaseback and for which the resale is not, at the time of the purchase of the second-hand goods, the principal objective but only its secondary objective, ancillary to that of leasing, can be considered to be a 'taxable dealer' within the meaning of that provision.

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¹ - OJ C 228 of 11. 09. 2004.