Opinion of Advocate General Darmon delivered on 17 September 1992

1 Original language: French.

2 Sixth Council Directive No 77/388/EEC of 17 May 1977 on the harmonization of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes —Common system of value added tax: uniform basis of assessment (OJ 1977 L 145, p. 1).

3 The concepts of transfer duty and stamp duty are used inter-changeably to describe the tax on the legal transfer of real estate sold for valuable consideration; the concept of transfer duty is nevertheless wider.

4 Primarily by means of Law No 405 of 10 April 1954 and Law No 254 of 15 March 1963.

5 Article 691 of the CGI: ILand registration tax and stamp duty shall not apply to purchases of 1.undeveloped land or land covered by buildings that are to be demolished; where such purchases attract VAT.

6 Judgments in Cases 295/84 Rousseau Wilmot v Organic [1985] ECR 3759, 73/85 Kerrutt v Finanzamt Mönchengladbach-Mitte [1986] ECR 2219, 391/85 Commission v Belgium [1988] ECR579, 252/86 Bergandi v Directeur-Général des Impôts [1988] ECR 1343, 317/86, 48-49/87, 285/87, 363-367/87, 65/88 and 78-80/88 Lambert and Others v Directeur des Services Fiscaux de l'Orne and Others [1989] ECR 787, 93-94/88 Wisselink and Others v Staatssecretaris van Financiën [1989] ECR 2671, C-109/90 Giant v Gemeente Overijse [1991] ECR I-1385, C-200/90 Dansk Denkavit and Poulsen v Skatteministeriet [1992] ECR I-2217 and C-347/90 Bozzi [1992] ECR I-2947.

7 Observations of MrBeaulande, p. 11.

8 Council Directive (EEC) No 67/227 of 11 April 1967 on the harmonization of legislation of Member States concerning turnover taxes (OJ, English Special Edition 1967, p. 14).

9 Third recital in the preamble to the First Directive.

10 Fourth recital.

11 See the references in footnote 5 above.

12 Paragraph 16.

13 See the references in footnote 5 above.

14 See paragraphs 9 and 10.

15 See the references in footnote 5 above.

16 Paragraph 8.

17 Also a reference for a preliminary ruling.

18 Paragraph 13.

19 Paragraph 16.

20 Sec the Wisselwk judgment, paragrapll 10.

21 Paragrapiis 14 and 15; emphasis added.

22 Paragraph 7 of the Commission's observations.

23 See the references in footnote 5 above.

24 Paragraphs 13 and 14.

25 See the references in footnote 5 above.

26 Dansk Denkavit judgment, paragraph 11, and Bozzi judgment, paragraph 12.

27 J.-C. Scholsem: La TVA européenne face au phénomène immobilier, Liège, 1976, p. 371.

28 Sec the references in footnote 5 above.

29 Paragraph 22.

30 See the Wisselink judgment, paragraph 20.