Request for a preliminary ruling from the Curtea de Apel Bucureşti (Romania) lodged on 3 March 2021 – Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti ‒ Administraţia Sector 1 a Finanţelor Publice v VB, Direcţia Generalā Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti ‒ Serviciul Soluţionare Contestaţii 1

(Case C-146/21)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Curtea de Apel Bucureşti

Parties to the main proceedings

Appellant: Direcţia Generală Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti ‒ Administraţia Sector 1 a Finanţelor Publice

Respondents: VB, Direcţia Generalā Regională a Finanţelor Publice Bucureşti ‒ Serviciul Soluţionare Contestaţii 1

Question referred

In circumstances such as those in the main proceedings, do Directive 2006/112/EC ¹ and the principle of neutrality preclude national legislation or a tax practice in accordance with which the reverse charge mechanism (simplification measures), which is mandatory for the sale of standing timber, is not applicable to a person who has been the subject of an inspection and who has been registered for VAT purposes following that inspection, on the grounds that the person subject to the inspection had neither applied for nor obtained registration for VAT purposes either before the transactions were carried out or by the date on which the upper limit [for exemption] was exceeded?

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¹ Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax (OJ 2006 L 347, p. 1).