The ECJ has held the Portuguese taxation of the unrealised gains inherent in a company’s assets on change of corporate residence from Portugal to be an unjustified hindrance on the freedom of establishment.
The Supreme Tax Court has held that the 5% expense disallowance on tax-free dividends was, up to 2002, a restriction on the freedom of establishment rather than of capital movement and could thus be upheld in respect of a 33% share in a US company.
An ECJ advocate general has suggested the court hold that the 5% effectively connected expense add-back for foreign dividends infringes a company’s freedom of establishment if an otherwise comparable domestic company could avoid the add-back by joining a tax group.
An ECJ advocate general has suggested the court hold that the Dutch provisions on tax groups are in conflict with the freedom of establishment insofar as they do not allow domestic sub-subsidiaries of a foreign subsidiary or domestic subsidiaries of a foreign parent to join or form a Dutch tax group.
The European Court of Justice issued a joint judgment in two cases regarding the Dutch group taxation regime under which a parent company is not allowed to deduct interest in respect of a loan taken from a Swedish related company in order to finance its capital contribution to an Italian subsidiary. This is held to be in conflict with the EU freedom of establishment. On the other hand, the refusal to deduct currency losses resulting from fluctuations in the exchange rate is viewed by the court as being not in violation of EU-law.
Following the request for a preliminary ruling from the German Supreme Tax Court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is called to decide whether a German parent company has the right to deduct from its taxable income losses incurred by its UK branch, which had ceased activity and thus could no longer utilize its accumulated tax losses in the UK. In his Opinion, the Advocate General has suggested that the German rules denying the import of losses of foreign branches are not contrary to the EU principles of freedom of establishment.
The ECJ has held the roll-over relief provisions allowing deferral of the tax charge on a capital gain from the sale of business property to infringe the freedom of establishment inasmuch as they require reinvestment of the gain in a replacement asset in Germany.
An ECJ advocate general has suggested the court deny an individual freedom of capital movement on the grounds that the more appropriate freedom is that of establishment, which, however, is not relevant in the circumstances.
The German Constitutional Court overturned a 2019 judgment of the Supreme Tax Court regarding the erstwhile change in its case law on the issue of the income correction with respect to an unsecured group loan because the tax court failed to submit the facts of the case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for final clarification and thus violated the complainant's right to the lawful judge under Article 101(1) of the Constitutional Statute.
The ECJ has held that an obligation on a German bank to report assets held by German customers of its Austrian branch to the German tax authorities does not restrict the bank’s freedom to establish itself in Austria.
The ECJ has held that freedoms of establishment and of capital movement preclude national legislation relieving foreign tax by credit as opposed to the exemption of domestic source income where the actual corporation tax paid by domestic companies is generally less than the nominal rate. It has also accepted the freedom of capital movement as relevant, unless the national legislation was aimed at controlling interests.
The Supreme Tax Court has held that restricting a trade tax privilege to domestic units of a tax group does not infringe a group’s freedom of Establishment.
In a most recent decision, the Regional Tax Court of Düsseldorf dismissed the claim of a Japanese corporation for a refund of withholding tax on the grounds that the case was within the scope of the EU principles for freedom of establishment which the plaintiff, being a resident of a third country, could not invoke.
In its decision today the European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that a Member State (here: Germany) may prohibit holdings by purely financial investors in the capital of a law firm. Such a restriction on the freedom of establishment and the free movement of capital is justified by the objective of ensuring that lawyers can exercise their profession independently and in compliance with their professional conduct obligations.
In a recent judgement the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has clarified that it is contrary to the freedom of establishment to deny the deduction of interest costs on a loan from a normally taxed group company, if this would not have happened had the loan been granted from a normally taxed Swedish group company instead.
In its referral to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling, the Regional Tax Court of Bremen raises doubts as to whether the penalty surcharge under Section 162 (4) Fiscal Code due on failure to present proper documentation in cross border business relations is in line with the freedom of establishment in Art. 49 TFEU and the freedom to provide services (Art. 56 TFEU).
In its judgement of 24 July 2018, published on 30 January 2019, the Supreme Tax Court held that with regard to national provisions with a requirement of a minimum shareholding of at least 10%, the principle of the free movement of capital is not blocked by the principle of freedom of establishment. Whilst the judgement specifically related to a legal provision, which is no longer applicable, it represents a departure by the Supreme Tax Court from its previous view on this issue.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that the German penalty surcharge for failure to present proper documentation in cross border business relations is in line with the EU principle of freedom of establishment. Although there is a restriction because the documentation requirements and the associated penalty only apply to taxpayers engaged in business relationships with related parties abroad, the measures are proportionate, don’t go beyond what is necessary to attain the objective pursued and are necessary to ensure a balanced taxation powers between Member States.
