ECJ - Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2012

S. 5Preface

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has had to deal with more and more cases concerning direct taxation in the past years. This growing amount of case law is driven by the increased willingness of national courts to approach the ECJ through preliminary rulings as well as by the fact that the European Commission seems to be more and more willing to initiate infringement procedures against EU Member States. Furthermore, in addition to the provisions on the fundamental freedoms, the provisions on State aid have recently gained more relevance and have triggered additional case law pertinent to direct taxation. As all these cases are of great interest for academics as well as practitioners, they need to be analysed carefully.

The conference “Recent and Pending Cases at the ECJ on Direct Taxation” was held in Vienna from 29 November to 1 December 2012. A large number of experts on European and international tax law accepted our invitation to attend the conference and took part in the discussions. At the conference, cases in the field of direct taxation now pending before or recently decided by the ECJ were presented by experts of the respective countries. The cases involved interpr...