TAXED
PROSTITUTION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
The European Court of
Justice of Luxembourg (European Union’s
Institution), in its Sentence November
20th 2001, Case C-268/99, at relative paragraphs n. 33, 49, 69 and 70, said that prostitution made inside the above-mentioned
Confederation’s States must be taxed where this kind of work is legal. In the
first period said, the Court explained that “according to settled case-law, the pursuit of an activity as an employed person or
the provision of services for remuneration must be regarded as an economic
activity within the meaning of Article 2 of the EC Treaty (after amendment,
Article 2 EC and now Article 3 of the
Treaty on European Union (TEU) and Article
119 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), carried
out by the Lisbon Treaty), provided that the work performed is genuine and
effective and not such as to be regarded as purely marginal and ancillary”. In
the second point, it said that prostitution is a kind of economical activity
about those ones explained in the previous paragraph. In the third period, the European Court of Justice explained
that “it is not disputed that prostitution may be conducted without any element
of procuring at all” and so the same Judges said that prostitution among adult
and consentient people is existing. In the last fourth paragraph, it said that
the National Magistrates of EU’s States must set prostitution as a
self-employment as regards the way services, carried out by the same subject.
With all this one, it is possible to understand as
the European Court of Justice of
Luxembourg affirmed it is necessary to consider prostitution as a work
in all respect where this one is carried out on legal ways. About this one
it must get a meditation, focused on the factor that some European Union’s
State are considering at the same time legal and illegal prostitution, not
banning prostitutes but only their customers.
In the latter situation (which is paradoxical for a logical law-system)
prostitute would be considered as a normal worker, especially as a
self-employer. Unfortunately, the relative taxation about the Sentence into
question and the said Treaties’ Articles could not be possible, because the
connected customers could not be legal. Consequently, this kind of situation,
which surely is not in a good law-system way, with even a clear social
discrimination for the sex buyers, as to violate the democratic principles,
guaranteed even by the Article 14 of the European
Convention on Human Rights, would not conform to the ways of prostitution
taxed got mentioned here and so it would be possible to appeal to the
relative European Union’s Court to get
this kind of prohibition to buy sex services finished.
The said paragraph of the Sentence of the European Court of Justice of Luxembourg and the
connected articles are listed below.
European Court of Justice of
Luxembourg November 20th 2001, Case C-268/99
(omission)
33 According to settled case-law, the pursuit of an
activity as an employed person or the provision of services for remuneration
must be regarded as an economic activity within the meaning of Article 2 of the
EC Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 2 EC), provided that the work
performed is genuine and effective and not such as to be regarded as purely
marginal and ancillary
(see, inter alia, Joined Cases C-51/96 and C-191/97 Deliège
[2000] ECR I-2549, paragraphs 53 and 54).
(omission)
49 Consequently, prostitution is a provision of
services for remuneration which, as indicated in paragraph 33 above, falls
within the concept of economic activities.
(omissis)
69 Further, the general presumption that the
relationship of dependency between certain persons engaged in prostitution and
their pimps is equivalent to employment, even supposing that it were valid
under national law, would put an economic activity entirely beyond the freedom
of establishment arrangements introduced by the Association Agreements between
the Communities and Poland and the Czech Republic when it is not disputed
that prostitution may be conducted without any element of procuring at all.
As follows from paragraph 39 of this judgment, such a result would be at
variance with the intention of the Contracting Parties to those Agreements.
70 It is for the national court to determine in each
case, in the light of the evidence adduced before it, whether the conditions
allowing it to be concluded that prostitution is being carried on by the person
concerned in a self-employed capacity are satisfied, that is to say:
- outside any relationship
of subordination concerning the choice of that activity, working conditions and
conditions of remuneration;
- under that person's own
responsibility; and
- in return for remuneration
paid to that person directly and in full.
(omission)
Treaty on European
Union
(omission)
Art.3
(Ex Art. 2 TEU e TEC)
1. The Union's
aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.
2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of
freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free
movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with
respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and
combating of crime.
3. The Union shall establish an internal market. It
shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic
growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming
at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and
improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and
technological advance.
It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination,
and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and
men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child.
It shall promote economic, social and territorial
cohesion, and solidarity among Member States.
It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic
diversity, and shall ensure that Europe's cultural heritage is safeguarded and
enhanced.
4. The Union shall establish an economic and monetary
union whose currency is the euro.
5. In its relations with the wider world, the Union
shall uphold and promote its values and interests and contribute to the
protection of its citizens. It shall contribute to peace, security, the
sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among
peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of
human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict
observance and the development of international law, including respect for the
principles of the United Nations Charter.
6. The Union shall pursue its objectives by appropriate means
commensurate with the competences which are conferred upon it in the Treaties.
(omission)
Treaty on the
Functioning of European Union
(omission)
Article 119 (Ex
Article 4 TEC)
1. For the purposes set out in Article
3 of the Treaty on European Union, the activities of the Member States and the
Union shall include, as provided in the Treaties, the adoption of an
economic policy which is based on the close coordination of Member States'
economic policies, on the internal market and on the definition of common
objectives, and conducted in accordance with the principle of an open market
economy with free competition.
2.
Concurrently with the foregoing, and as provided in the Treaties and in
accordance with the procedures set out therein, these activities shall include
a single currency, the euro, and the definition and conduct of a single
monetary policy and exchange-rate policy the primary objective of both of which
shall be to maintain price stability and, without prejudice to this objective,
to support the general economic policies in the Union, in accordance with the
principle of an open market economy with free competition.
3. These activities of the Member States
and the Union shall entail compliance with the following guiding principles:
stable prices, sound public finances and monetary conditions and a sustainable
balance of payments.
(omission)
Written on November 19th
2013
