CJEU - Recent Developments in Direct Taxation 2024

Eric C.C.M. Kemmeren

1. Introduction

Pensions are in the interest of both the elderly and young people. To have accumulated an adequate pension benefit after retirement against a reasonable price, one should start accumulating pension claims as early as possible. However, doing so is not always easy in cross-border situations. For example, one of my sons lives and works in Copenhagen. He is a Dutch national. He started working in Denmark after graduating in the Netherlands. In the context of his first employment with his Danish employer, the question of participating in a Danish pension scheme arose. He was advised not to join the pension scheme, inter alia, because if he were to leave Denmark, transferring such a scheme to another country was considered too complicated and not beneficial for either my son or his Danish employer. They decided not to join a Danish pension scheme. My son now needs to find an alternative to ensure that after retirement he receives sufficient pension benefits to provide for his retirement.

The connection with the recently decided cases to be discussed in this chapter is the alleged taxation of cross-border transfers of pension claims from the Netherlands ...