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29.11.2024

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For November 2024

Tax & Financial Standards New Judgments of the ECJ For November 2024

 

November

 

Joined Cases С-289/23 and C-305/23 of 7 November 2024

Procedures concerning restructuring, insolvency and discharge of debt — Extension of procedures to insolvent natural persons who are not entrepreneurs — Access to discharge of debt — Exclusion of specific categories of debt from discharge of debt — Natural person who has become insolvent — Good faith of the debtor — Conditions for access to discharge of debt — Exclusion of claims governed by public law

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Claims covered by public law. Discharge ceiling. List of specific categories of debt is not exhaustive and the Member States have the power to exclude from discharge of debt specific categories of debt provided that such an exclusion is duly justified. National legislation, which provides for a general exclusion, from discharge of debt, of claims governed by public law, except in very strict circumstances and with very strict quantitative limits, irrespective of the nature of those claims and the circumstances. National legislation which provides for a limitation on discharge of debt for a specific category of debts by establishing a ceiling.

Two sets of proceedings between A and S. and the State Tax Agency, Spain, regarding applications for discharge of debt submitted by A and S during insolvency proceedings in relation to each of them.

С-594/23 of 7 November 2024

Common system of value added tax – Supply of land that has only the foundations of residential housing structures in place – Classification – Concepts of ‘building land’ and ‘building or parts of a building’ – Criterion of the ‘first occupation’ of a building

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Supply of land that, at the date of that supply, has only the foundations of residential housing structures in place, constitutes a supply of ‘building land’ within the meaning of Article 12 of the VAT Directive. Uniform definition of taxable transactions.

Concepts of ‘building land’ and ‘building or parts of a building’.

Proceedings concerning the value added tax payable on the supply of land that has the foundations of residential housing structures in place.

С-394/22 of 14 November 2024

Jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters — Scope — Proceedings relating to the winding-up of insolvent companies or other legal persons, judicial arrangements, compositions and analogous proceedings — Action deriving directly from insolvency proceedings and closely linked with them — Action for the payment of a claim lodged after the debtor company was put into liquidation and the declaration of that claim lodged in the insolvency estate

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Bankruptcy and proceedings relating to the winding-up of insolvent companies or other legal persons. Actions deriving directly from insolvency proceedings and closely connected with them. An action brought in a Member State against a company seeking payment for goods delivered which does not mention the insolvency proceedings opened previously against that company in another Member State.

Concepts of ‘bankruptcy, proceedings relating to the winding-up of insolvent companies or other legal persons, judicial arrangements, compositions and analogous proceedings’ and ‘civil and commercial matters’.

Proceeding, concerning the recovery of an unpaid invoice, drawn up for bunkering services on behalf of OWB, which has been declared insolvent.

С-613/23 of 14 November 2024

VAT payable by a taxable entity – National legislation providing for the joint and several liability of the director of the entity – Presumption of liability in respect of the director in the absence of notification that the entity is unable to pay the VAT due – Principle of proportionality

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

The principle of proportionality must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation under which a director of an entity which has not complied with the obligation to notify its inability to pay a VAT debt must, in order to be relieved of his or her joint and several liability for the payment of that debt, demonstrate that the failure to comply with that notification obligation is not attributable to him or her.

Proceedings concerning certain additional tax assessments on turnover.

С-646/22 of 14 November 2024

Consumer protection — Unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices — Aggressive commercial practice — Cross-selling of a personal loan and an insurance product not related to that loan — „Framing“ — Commercial practice consisting of simultaneously proposing to a consumer an offer for a personal loan and an offer for an insurance product not related to that loan — No cooling-off period between the signature of the loan contract and that of the insurance policy contract — Notion of ‘average consumer’

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Insurance distribution. A national measure which allows a national authority, once it has been established that a commercial practice adopted by a particular trader is ‘aggressive’ or, more generally, ‘unfair’, to require that trader to grant the consumer a reasonable cooling-off period between the dates on which the insurance contract and the loan contract are signed. Case by case assessment of the ‘aggressive’ character of the practice. Decision of the administrative authority to impose a seven-day period between the signing of the two contracts. Notion of ‘average consumer’.

Proceedings between Co and the Competition and Market Authority, Italy, (A) in regard to that authority’s decisions concerning a commercial practice of that company.

С-61/23 of 21 November 2024

Road transport — Tax provisions — Charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures — Penalties applicable to infringements of the national provisions adopted under that directive — Requirement of proportionality — National legislation penalising all offences by means of a flat-rate fine

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

A system of penalties that provides for the imposition of a flat-rate fine or financial penalty for all offences, whatever their nature and gravity, under the rules on the obligation to make prior payment of the toll for use of a road infrastructure, including where that system provides for the possibility of being exempted from administrative criminal liability by paying a flat-rate ‘redress charge’.

Proceedings between Е and Road Infrastructure Agency (‘API’), concerning a financial penalty imposed on E for the use of a section of motorway without having paid the required toll amount as well as the possible payment of a flat-rate compensatory road charge.

С-624/23 of 21 November 2024

Common system of value added tax, and of the principle of neutrality of value added tax - Late submission of an application for registration – Issuing and content of invoices – Invoice which does not state input VAT – Tax calculated on the basis of a report – Absence of a correcting invoice – Right of deduction

Key aspects of the decision in the economic range:

Deduction of VAT. Legislation under which the recipient of a supply subject to VAT is denied the right to deduct that tax, provided for by the VAT Directive, where the supplier, first, has failed to fulfil its obligation, laid down by that legislation, to submit an application for registration for VAT purposes and issued for the recipient invoices not stating VAT, and, second, issued, during a tax inspection, a report stating that VAT.

Proceedings concerning the refusal to grant that company the right to deduct VAT.