Building The Eu Tax Sovereignty

The role of taxation within the European Union has risen (and is rising) over the years due to the establishment of the Economic and Monetary Union and the economic/financial and COVID crises. It is well established that taxation is characterized as an obstacle for the functioning of the internal market and the interpretation of the fundamental freedoms has a direct impact on the design of the domestic tax systems. The first part of this article addresses the clash between the supranational economic freedoms and the domestic tax systems in the light of the federal experience of “two levels of government”. The second part, differently, sheds light on the role of taxation within the Economic and Monetary Union. After having enucleated a principle of solidarity according to article 122(2) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the article inquires the foundations and the limits of the European Union's authority to tax. In particular, it aims at demonstrating that the financial assistance to the Member States in exceptional circumstances should be funded through the EU budget and EU taxes.Full-text Paper.

The power of a country to freely design its tax system is generally understood to be an integral feature of sovereignty. However, as an inevitable result of globalization and income mobility, one country’s exercise of tax sovereignty often overlaps, interferes with, or even impedes that of another. In this collection of essays, internationally respected practitioners and academics reveal how the OECD’s Base Erosion and Pro t Shifting (BEPS) initiative, although a major step in the right direction, is insuf cient to resolve the tax sovereignty paradox. Each contribution deals with different facets of a single topic: How tax sovereignty is shaped in a post ,BEPS world. The contributors provide in ,depth analysis of such relevant issues as the following: hy multilateral cooperation and soft law consensus are the preferred solutions to a loss of autonomy over national tax policy; – how digital commerce has upended traditional notions of source and residence; – why residence and source continue to be the two essential building blocks of tax sovereignty and the backbone of the international tax system; – how developing countries can take advantage of the new international tax architecture to ensure that their voices are truly shaping the standards; and – transfer pricing reform. Collectively, the authors provide an authoritative commentary on the necessary preconditions for exercising the power to tax in today’s world. Their perspectives and recommendations will prove of great value to all policymakers, legislators, practitioners, and academics in the international taxation arena.

The book deals with national sovereignty of Member States in tax matters, and the tensions created by the fact that the decisions by the European Court of Justice requires them to exercise consistently with the Community law. Contributions in the book cover a variety of critical issues, including the current and possible future effects of the internal market on the fiscal sovereignty of Member States; the limits that European law imposes on Member States' policy sovereignty in matters of international tax law; the effect of European law on taxes levied by local authorities; and the consequences the Treaty of Lisbon may have for Member States' fiscal sovereignty.

Although EU Member States have retained national sovereignty in tax matters, a consistent line of decisions by the European Court of Justice requires them to exercise these powers consistent with superseding Community law. In other words, the Member States are not wholly autonomous. This in turn creates serious tensions. This timely resource covers a variety of critical issues, including the current and possible future effects of the internal market on the fiscal sovereignty of Member States; the limits that European law imposes on Member States’ policy sovereignty in matters of international tax law; the effect of European law on taxes levied by local authorities; and the consequences the Treaty of Lisbon may have for Member States’ fiscal sovereignty.

This book explores the relationship between the sovereignty to levy direct taxes and the freedom of movement in the European Union, and discusses related ECJ case law (Bosal Holding, Marks & Spencer, Manninen and Ritter).

The book argues that the notions of tax sovereignty and EU free movement should be regarded as two fundamentally equal principles. The conflict between these two principles is resolved by establishing, in individual cases, the optimum position between two extremes: a general unrestricted freedom of action by states versus a prohibition of any obstacle to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. The process of reconciliation of these competing principles is structured by the theoretical optimization model developed in the present study. This model is external to the present case law. The application of the theoretical optimization model to the ECJ’s case law in the area of direct taxation reveals that this case law is largely in line with the model. It is certainly not as internally inconsistent as claimed in some of the tax literature. Many jigsaw pieces seem to fit after all if the case law is assessed in the light of the model. A number of future developments could be expected on the basis of the model and extensive case law analysis. The most important of these is that, in some cases, truly non-discriminatory tax measures should give rise to a prima facie restriction on free movement.

Member States of the European Union have always insisted on their unrestricted national sovereignty. This book focuses on the crucial issue of the balance between the imperatives of the fundamental economic freedoms of the EC Treaty and the legitimate national interests of the Member States in protecting their national tax systems. The book, based on the proceedings of the annual conference of the European Association of Tax Law Professors (EATLP) held in Paris in June 2004, has been divided into the following four major subject areas: - the significance of the prohibitions of discrimination and restriction within the framework of the fully integrated market; - the lessons to be learned for taxation from the application of these prohibitions in areas other than taxation; - the basis and scope of the public interest justification advanced by the Member States for tax measures violating the fundamental freedoms; and the compatibility of the "national tax principles of the Member States" with a fully integrated market. Attention is also given to the adaptation of the tax systems of three major new Member States (the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) to the requirements of the "acquis communautaire". Finally, there is a special contribution on the effect of the prohibitions of discrimination and restriction in non-EU countries (Norway and Switzerland). This book presents a comprehensive study of the tax issues that play a decisive role in the making or breaking of the European Economic and Monetary Union.

Tax law is one of the legal fields with the most subtle influence on European integration and EU law. The European economic cooperation project emerged with the customs union, essentially a tax law concept, and evolved alongside other topics of tax harmonization. Still, the existence of the EU tax law is disputed. The research on the topic is significant, as the integration of national economies and markets has increased substantially, both within the EU and globally. This has put a strain on domestic tax rules, which are subject to the demands of the international taxation requirements. This book explores the relationship between tax avoidance regulation and sovereignty within the European Union, analyzing the impact of the effective regulatory methods for limiting and eliminating aggressive tax planning by multinational companies. Focusing on analyzing good practice in fiscal regulation efficiency and the results generated by the tax jurisprudence both at national and European level, its main objective is to present the argument for inter-dependency between taxation and the current changes in the concept of sovereignty. It highlights where fiscal regulation has led to uniform, yet flexible, solutions for the actual fight against companies’ abusive fiscal conduct, when taking advantage of tax competition. This text will be of value to academics, researchers, and advanced students in tax law and tax avoidance regulation and their intersection with sovereignty in the context of the European Union.

This book provides a comprehensive and systematic overview of the main topics of taxation in European law. The sequence of arguments follows an institutional logic, respecting the academic tradition of tax law. It first outlines the general framework of EU institutions, with a particular focus on the set of regulations regarding taxation with reference to the stage of formation of EU rules and the potential contrast with national legal systems. It then explores the general principles emerging from the European treaties that typically involve the taxation system, and examines in detail the fiscal importance of European freedoms, the principle of tax non-discrimination, the balance between national interest and EU values, tax harmonization, state aids and other general principles applicable in tax jurisdiction. Lastly, it offers an overall assessment of the development of the European integration process, with particular regard to the nexus between taxation power and sovereignty, in order to highlight the possible and desirable next stages of the evolution of “European tax law”.

Having spent almost fifty years of my life defending the separate accou- ing, arm's length pricing method, I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised to be asked to contribute to a book suggesting that the European Union might do well to consider adopting a formulary approach to deal with the taxation of inter and intra company transactions. I was even more surprised to see the invitation coming from Ms. Joann Weiner an ardent co-defender of arm's length pricing and my strong right arm in that regard while we both served in the U.S. Treasury Department in the mid '90s. The book gives Ms Weiner the opportunity to comment frankly from an insider's perspective of the many admitted problems of the arm's length system which could be avoided by a formulary approach. Ms. Weiner brings to this project a thorough expert knowledge of the b- efits and shortfalls of each of the systems she discusses - separate accounting v. formulary apportionment. Who better to decide to give qualified support to formulary than someone who organized a U.S. Treasury conference to defend arm's length pricing against a Congressional challenge in favor of formulary apportionment.