Fiscal State Aid Law and Harmful Tax Competition in the European Union PDF Download

Author: Dimitrios Kyriazis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198878311
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The intersection between fiscal state aid and taxation has become more topical than ever. Mounting financial crises have left EU Member States scrambling to increase their tax revenue, balance their budgets, and attract capital. Taking advantage of these trends, multinational enterprises have lobbied for favourable tax arrangements, raising questions about the breadth of control the Commission can and should practise. To address egregious instances of favourable taxation, the Commission has tried to simultaneously use soft law and deploy Treaty rules on state aid. Fiscal State Aid Law and Harmful Tax Competition in the EU examines the use of state aid rules against national tax measures. Kyriazis's book presents a targeted investigation of these measures in two parts. The first part addresses Commission decisions and ECJ judgments of the early 2000s, which the author calls the "first wave". The second part consists of all the recent Commission decisions and investigations into tax schemes and individual tax rulings, most notably the Apple, Fiat, Starbucks, and Amazon investigations, which Kyriazis labels the "second wave". The characteristics and common threads of each wave are set out, their similarities and differences dissected, and their nexus to the EU's fight against harmful tax competition explored. Containing a thorough analysis of the legal concept of fiscal state aid under Article 107(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, this book will be of interest to scholars of European and International Tax law and practitioners working in the field of European competition law.

Author: Isabelle Richelle
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3662530554
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This book is a compilation of contributions exploring the impact of the European Treaty provisions regarding state aid on Member States’ legislation and administrative practice in the area of business taxation. Starting from a detailed analysis of the European Courts’ jurisprudence on Art.107 TFEU the authors lay out fundamental issues – e.g. on legal concepts like “advantage”, “selectivity” and “discrimination” – and explore current problems – in particular policy and practice regarding “harmful” tax competition within the European Union. This includes the Member States’ Code of Conduct on business taxation, the limits to anti-avoidance legislation and the options for legislation on patent boxes. The European Commission’s recent findings on preferential “rulings” are discussed as well as the general relationship between international tax law, transfer pricing standards and the European prohibition on selective fiscal aids.

Author: Carla De Pietro
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9403514248
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
New Perspectives on Fiscal State Aid Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Fiscal State Aid Control Edited by Carla De Pietro Based on a project co-funded by the European Commission, this book focuses on fiscal state aid – an increasingly important topic – with a number of high-profile cases ongoing and with serious implications for sustainable growth and the future of the internal market. The project, conducted by four universities, consisted in seminars, workshops and a final conference aimed at training national tax judges from the four different countries involved (Austria, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands), with discussion and reflection by international academics and other tax professionals who participated as speakers and/or discussants. This book presents an in-depth analysis of the topics the project dealt with, taking a giant step towards defining the connection between effective state aid control, its legitimacy and a desirable functioning of the internal market for the twenty-first century. The core elements of this fundamental analysis include the following: selectivity as applied in the case law of the Court of Justice; whether and to what extent state aid law limits European Union (EU) Member States in designing anti-tax avoidance measures; protection of legitimate expectations; to what extent national judges are required to apply state aid rules ex officio; powers of national judges in connection with the national obligation of guaranteeing an immediate and effective recovery on the basis of an order issued by the European Commission; and connection between legitimacy of state aid law and effectiveness of state aid control. The book includes a thorough investigation of the notion of fiscal state aid, also by focusing on the most recent decisions of the European Commission concerning mismatches. Representing, as it does, an important and concrete contribution to the intense debate about the interpretation of the notion of fiscal state aid, with different normative views about the goals and functions of control, this book will stimulate solutions in terms of legitimacy of fiscal state aid control that also take into consideration the most desirable functioning of the internal market. It will be welcomed not only by academics in taxation and EU law but also by national tax judges, tax authorities and practitioners.

Author: Alexander Rust
Publisher: Kluwer Law International B.V.
ISBN: 9041146253
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book provides clear guidance on what constitutes State Aid in the area of tax law. It clearly explains the situations in which beneficial tax provisions for the taxpayer – e.g., lower tax rates for certain industries or for certain economic zones, advantageous depreciation rules, or exemptions – can be declared void by the European Commission. The difficult controlling concept of ‘selectivity’ of an aid is dealt with extensively. Drawing on familiarity with the practice of the Commission, as well as the jurisprudence of the General Court and of the Court of Justice, thirteen knowledgeable contributors present valuable arguments in case the Commission requires the repayment of advantages received. Among the topics and issues covered are the following: how unregulated tax incentive competition between States leads to a ‘win’ by one State and a ‘loss’ by another; the legal uncertainty attached to the Commission’s decision following notification of a proposed tax incentive; the role of the Commission’s Code of Conduct; calculating the amount of recovery of illegal State Aid; application of State Aid rules in the area of indirect taxation (e.g., VAT and excise duties); investment fund regimes; subnational regional aid; ‘patent box’ regimes; foreign source income; and taxpayers’ exclusion from infringement proceedings and subsequent appeals. Complete with case studies and analyses of the latest case law on selectivity, this invaluable resource will be welcomed by practitioners who, although they may be well-versed in tax law, are sure to benefit greatly from the authors’ expert guidance on State Aid provisions and the rules on harmful tax competition.

Author: Liza Lovdahl Gormsen
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1788972090
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
This book investigates whether the European Commission (EC) has the mandate to legislate on direct taxation in sovereign states and ultimately questions whether the EC’s enforcement action in recent tax ruling cases, in the area of state aid, respects the rule of law.

Author: Eva-Maria Bauer
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668353441
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 21

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Law - Tax / Fiscal Law, grade: Sehr gut, Vienna University of Economics and Business (Institut für Österreichisches und Internationales Steuerrecht), course: Tax Law Seminar, language: English, abstract: Since the beginning of the economic and financial crisis harmful tax competition increased and therefore also public concern in regard to aggressive tax planning augmented. Many countries try to attract foreign capital by setting low corporate income taxes. For example in Ireland and in Cyprus there is a tax of 12.5 %. A lot of multinational companies use these tax systems to reduce their overall tax burden and so they choose a low-tax-country for incorporation. To mention the BEPS Action Plan, many actions aim at reducing aggressive tax practises and therefore reducing shifting profits in low-tax-countries. As there will be no way in near future to harmonize tax bases and tax rates within the European Union, the European Commission tries to restrict distorting tax competition by using EU State Aid rules. Therefore it does not focus on tax rates or policies as such, but on tax rulings for specific firms. The Commission stated that: “Under State aid rules, national authorities cannot take selective measures that allow certain companies to pay less in taxes than they should if the tax rules of the country were applied in a fair and non-discriminatory way.”

Author: Rossella Miceli
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030887359
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This book analyzes the issue of European fiscal State aid in order to provide insights into the related evolution prospects and legal problems. State aid has assumed a central position in the field of taxation, becoming the most important instrument of European legal integration, especially in the area of direct taxes. This is the result of major regulatory and interpretative development, which has altered the initial European and national balances in the face of globalization and the problems of the new economy. In this context, the scope and objectives of State aid have progressively broadened, encompassing a significant level of both positive and negative integration of European national tax systems.

Author: Carlo Pinto
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9789041199133
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Sovereign states commonly use tax incentives in order to attract investment and capital from abroad. Although it has been recognized for many years that the forms and features of these incentives can often have harmful effects, there has not until now been a clear, in depth, full scale study of what these effects are, how they come about, and how they can be minimised or avoided. This new book by Carlo Pinto performs the indispensable function of crystallising the extensive European and American literature in the field, locating his legal analysis in an EU law context that offers a framework within which tax lawyers in both government and business can find common ground. Tax Competition and EU Law builds an authoritative synthesis and proposal on its detailed discussions of all aspects of the theory and practice of tax competition, including the following: evidence of interjurisdictional tax competition in the U.S. experience and what the EU can learn from it; methodologies to study tax competition; economic evidence of tax competition in Europe; Member States' 'benchmark' tax systems; internal market distortion provisions of the EC Treaty (Articles 96 and 97); relevant EMU provisions; applicability of state aid provisions (EC Treaty Article 87) to direct tax measures; the EU 'Code of Conduct' Group; OECD countermeasures against harmful tax competition; and, CFC legislation. In the course of his presentation the author analyses various tax regimes and court cases from most EU Member States, outlining the issues and clarifications each brings to the central questions. His final proposal clearly demonstrates that the beneficial effects of tax competition ' decrease in direct tax burden, improved efficiency in public administration, enhancement of employment and development ' need not be fraught with the risk of fiscal degradation. This is a major milestone in the success of the projected harmonisation of taxation in the European Union.

Author: Ben J. Kiekebeld
Publisher: Kluwer Law International
ISBN: 9789041124470
Category : Competition
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book investigates how the harmful tax competition is taken on in the European Union and especially what the relation is between the political achievements like the Code of Conduct and the counter measures of the individual Member States on the one hand and EU law on the other. It deals with the following questions: What is harmful tax competitition within the EU? What is the position of harmful tax competition in EU law? What are the possible measures to combat harmful tax competition and what is the relation to EU law?

Author: P.J Wattel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The European Union has woken up to State aid possibly contained in national direct tax measures. As a result, the number of Commission actions against Member States on the basis of fiscal State aid has increased in recent years, with some amazing results. It has also revealed overlap and concurrence, sometimes even contradiction between EU State aid law and other EU law affecting direct taxation. The author discusses four types of interaction/overlap between EU State aid law and other areas of (EU) (soft) law affecting direct taxation: 1) State aid and free movement rights; 2) State aid and harmful tax competition; 3) State aid and anti-abuse measures; and 4) State aid in the form of taxation itself. His conclusions are that (i) State aid is marching on the field of taxation; (ii) the Code of Conduct Group is marching on the field of tax disparities and therefore on tax harmonization; and (iii) the criteria for assessing fiscal restrictions on free movement rights, fiscal State aid and harmful tax competition are converging, resulting in more overlap between the three sets of rules.Full-text Paper.