ECJ – Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2014

I. S. 206Background

The Swedish Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has recently sought preliminary rulings in three different cases. Two of these three cases which are now pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) derive from the ordinary procedure within the administrative courts and the other derives from a ruling of the Swedish Board of Advance Tax Rulings (the Board).

In each of the cases, one question is referred. The questions were referred to the ECJ between November 2013 and May 2014. It is worth noting that it has been six years since the SAC referred a question to the ECJ in the area of direct taxation. All three questions are a welcome contribution towards making the negative integration and the influence of EU law on domestic tax systems clearer. The first case discussed in this chapter, case C-632/13 Hirvonen concerns individual taxation and the consequences of the possibility for a non-resident tax payer to choose to be taxed as a resident taxpayer (according to the Income Tax Act (ITA)) instead of according to the SINK legislation (i.e. the legislation for non-resident tax payers). Does this possibility neutralize the potential restriction which the SIN...