Judgments Geistheilerin is subject to VAT

FG Stuttgart: Seminars are not medical treatment

Seminars for esoteric "spiritual healing" are not medical treatment. Therefore, they are not exempt from VAT, as the Finanzgericht (FG) of Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart ruled on Wednesday, October 5, 2016, ruling (Ref .: 14 K 1338/15).

It thus rejected a "healer" from Switzerland. It also offers seminars in Germany dealing with esoteric practices. For this purpose, they did not pay sales tax in Germany.

When the tax office learned of the seminars, it checked. The Swiss woman said she achieved tax-free sales. Their activity is comparable to that of a non-medical practitioner. She is a recognized "healer" and offers essentially training seminars, a "mental back straightening", a raising of the spine, spiritual therapies, Reiki and light degree initiations. The healing is done essentially by "discussing" (healing prayers), a "clearing" as well as by laying on of hands.

The tax office was not convinced. It set sales tax. The "healer" complained.

As the FG Stuttgart decided, the seminars are "taxable and taxable domestically". Tax benefits are only "a cure in the field of human medicine by medical or physician-like benefits". As a curative treatment is the diagnosis or treatment of a disease. This must be provided by a person who "has the necessary qualifications".

The Swiss already lacked the required professional qualification. Because according to her own information, her qualification is not based on training but on her "talent".

In addition, the self-appointed healer had neither made diagnoses nor treated diseases. At any rate, her invoices did not reveal any diagnoses. Participation in their seminars was open. Among them were numerous people who had promised themselves not "healing" but "an increase in their well-being".

Overall, the Swiss is therefore "not for medical science," said the FG Stuttgart in its judgment of 6 July 2016.

In 2014, the Gießen district court had ruled that "miracle healers" did not practice a medical profession; for that very reason, that activity can not be prohibited, it is protected from freedom of occupation (judgment of 12 June 2014, Ref .: 507 Cs 402 Js 6823/11, JurAgentur report of 4 August 2014). mwo / fle