CJEU – Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2015

I. S. 123Introduction

Since the Schumacker case was decided, a massive body of case law has been developed on the question of whether the state of source, rather than the taxpayer’s state of residence should take into account the taxpayer’s personal and family circumstances. Nevertheless, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has been called on once more to provide further explanation. This paper will discuss a case which is not strictly an internal EU case, but it is a pending case in which a non-resident of the Netherlands also received income from a third state, more precisely from Switzerland, which is not just a regular third state. Switzerland has concluded an agreement with the European Union and its Member States on the free movement of persons (the Agreement). In this context, there are still a number of open questions, at least according to the Dutch Supreme Court. The case in question is: Case 283/15 (X.).

The main issue is how to deal with the personal and family circumstances of a non-resident taxpayer of a Member State who is a resident of another Member State in which he earns no income, but who earns not only substantial taxable income in the first mentioned Mem...