Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2018:54
Date: 2018-02-01
Language of the case: Polish
Subject matter: Taxation;Excise duties
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Poland

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber), 17 May 2018 Tax provisions — Harmonisation of laws — Excise duties — Directive 92/83 — Alcohol and alcoholic beverages — Calculation of the amount of excise duty — Assessment according to the Plato scale — Method of calculation (Council Directive 92/83, Art. 3(1)) Article 3(1) of Council Directive 92/83/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the harmonisation of the structures of excise duties on alcohol and alcoholic beverages must be interpreted as meaning that in order to determine the basis of assessment for flavoured beers according to the Plato scale, the dry extract of the original wort must be taken into consideration but not the aromatic substances or sugar syrup added after the completion of fermentation. In that connection, first, it is common ground that, according to its usual meaning in brewing, the Plato scale enables the calculation of the percentage of dry extract in the mass of the original wort, one degree Plato being equivalent to 1 g of dry extract per 100 g of original wort. It follows that, as is commonly understood in brewing, the degree Plato is calculated without taking into account the aromatic substances and sugar syrup added in flavoured beer after the fermentation process. Second the contextual analysis confirms that, within the framework of Directive 92/83, the calculation of the degrees Plato of flavoured beer cannot take account of the aromatic substances and sugar syrup added after the fermentation process has been completed. (see paras 28, 31, 43, operative part)