CJEU - Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2024

1. Introduction

The A.En. Slovensko v. Finančné riaditeľstvo case, (Request C-201/24), was referred to the CJEU by the Supreme Administrative Court of the Slovak Republic on 13 March 2024. The case concerns a business operating in the field of electricity, gas and heat supplies, all subject to a special levy on the revenue of entities generated in regulated sectors (Special Levy). In its essence, the Special Levy is an additional tax on top of the corporate income tax levied under the Slovak Act on Income Tax (Corporate Income Tax). However, the mechanics of calculation of the Special Levy (see Section 4. for more details) are not entirely identical to those of the Corporate Income Tax, which eventually led to the dispute at hand.

Despite the case having purely domestic character, the taxpayer claims that the EU Merger Directive applies due the way its relevant provisions were transposed into domestic law. It is noteworthy that this dispute is not the first of its kind in Slovakia, the previous one being decided by the Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic in favour of the taxpayer without referring the case to CJEU. The probable S. 136reason for deviation was a relatively recent decision o...