CJEU – Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2022

1. Introduction

In this paper, we shall discuss several cases involving French tax law. The first case relates to a special levy on distributions (called “précompte”) that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) found incompatible with the Parent-Subsidiary Directive in its Schneider Electric judgement of 12 May 2022 (C-556/20). This case has already been presented at the conference held in 2021, but at that time, only the opinion of the Advocate General had been published. The case is again addressed in this article because the judgement of the Court happens not to follow the opinion of the Advocate General, and it is worth describing the consequences of this judgement in the French legal context.

S. 10The second and third cases, which have given rise to two distinct referrals by the French Administrative Supreme Court (“Conseil d’Etat”), bear upon the same legal question. Both cases call for a clarification of the ultimate effects of the judgement that the CJEU issued in the Steria case dealing with the tax treatment of dividends paid to French parent companies by subsidiaries established in the European Union.

2. The Schneider Electric case

2.1. Facts and legal background

2.1.1....