CJEU - Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2020

Servaas van Thiel/Pasquale Pistone/Melchior Wathelet

S. 2301. Surprising tax decisions of the European Courts on Hungarian turnover taxes and Irish State aid for Apple

1.1. Introduction

Between the conferences held in November 2019 and November 2020 in Vienna on the direct tax cases of the European Courts (General Court and Court of Justice of the European Union), a series of new cases was decided that touch, amongst others, on the effects which the EU Treaty freedoms and the EU Treaty prohibition of State aid have on the domestic tax laws of the EU Member States.

Some of these decisions seem to build on and confirm previous trends in the Court‘s direct tax case law. In certain cases, for instance, this was clear from the choice of the Court to issue an order (i.e. without opinion of Advocate General) rather than a judgement. As such, in Case C-613/18 Estado do Canadá (21 January 2020), the ECJ essentially reiterated previous case law that tax exempt entities of third countries (e.g. pension funds, investment funds) are, under the Treaty Articles on the free movement of capital, entitled to receiving passive investment income on portfolio investments in European companies free from source st...