Tax-legal dimension of the EU founding treaties
Authors: Vdovichen V. , Vdovichena L. 
Published: September 2024

In this article, the author examines the legal nature and content of the EU founding treaties in the part of their impact on the regulation of tax relations. Having the nature of international legal acts, the EU founding treaties emerge as a result of the treaty process. They are aimed at establishing the European Communities and the European Union itself with the relevant functions and tasks. As a result, these treaties form the legal basis for the functioning of the entire EU structure. They also create an international treaty-based integration mechanism for future members, which is carried out within the framework of the latter. This functional system is a set of international agreements that guide the development of integration processes for the entire association.
In the context of demonstrating the tax­legal dimension of the EU founding treaties, we distinguish the understanding of the EU founding treaties in three aspects. Taken together, they will be defined as the result of the systemic action of specific legal and social factors that influence the nature, usefulness and appropriateness of the regulation of tax relations within the EU.
Firstly, the founding treaty as the primary act of EU tax law itself is expressed in the fact that the legal norms enshrined in the founding treaties form the constitutional basis - the fundamental legal framework, the basis of the legal order of the European Union. It is a primary law that can be compared and equated with national constitutional provisions. The rules of primary law directly give rise to rights and obligations of both Member States and individuals (natural and legal) of these states, and this trend is no exception in the tax area. Today, the functioning of the legal order of the European Union is based on the Lisbon Treaty, which includes the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. They demonstrate the primary foundations of tax and legal regulation: the key feature of tax regulation is the fundamental principle of harmonisation of tax legislation of the EU Member
States. This is implemented in the process of creating and using various legal forms (legal acts) that enshrine the rules of tax integration law created by EU legal institutions.
Secondly, the founding treaty is an act of defining and establishing secondary acts of tax law. And this is reflected in the fact that the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which relate to and define the basis of tax regulation within the EU, are both law-making and law-implementing. Thus, the tax-legal dimension of the EU founding treaties can be considered both as a rule-making constant of provisions that determine the specifics of legal acts envisaged by the founding treaties, their legal nature and peculiarities of adoption. Moreover, as a law enforcement constant of provisions regulating the harmonisation of taxation legislation, approximation of laws in this area and other provisions that may be relevant to taxation.
Thirdly, the actual content of the founding treaty with tax-legal elements. This is because EU tax regulation is aimed at the continuous operation of the single market. Therefore, the enshrined legal provisions are mainly related to indirect taxation (value added tax, excise duties, import duties, energy and other environmental taxes). However, the provisions of EU tax law limit the sovereign taxation rights of EU Member States in the area of direct taxation mainly when the object or subject of taxation has a connection with two or more EU Member States.