Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2018:49
Date: 2018-01-31
Language of the case: French
Subject matter: Taxation
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: France

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber), 14 June 2018 Free movement of goods — Customs duties — Charges having equivalent effect — Internal taxation — Social solidarity contribution payable by companies — Calculation of the basis of assessment for that contribution — National legislation which provides that the representative value of goods transferred within the territory of a Member State is taken into account only at the time of their sale — Taking into account the representative value of goods transferred from the Member State concerned to another Member State from the time of that transfer — Lawfulness — Conditions (Arts 28 TFEU and 30 TFEU) Articles 28 and 30 TFEU must be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State which provides that the basis of assessment for contributions levied on the annual turnover of companies, provided that the latter reaches or exceeds a certain amount, is calculated by taking into account the representative value of the goods transferred by or on behalf of a taxable person, for the purposes of his business, from that Member State to another EU Member State, that value being taken into account from the time of that transfer, whereas, in the case where the same goods are transferred by or on behalf of the taxable person, for the purposes of his business, within the territory of the Member State concerned, their value is taken into account in that basis of assessment only at the time of their subsequent sale, on condition that: – first, the value of those goods is not taken into account in that basis of assessment for a second time at the time of their subsequent sale in that Member State; – secondly, their value is deducted from that basis of assessment when those goods are not intended to be sold in the other Member State or have been transferred back to the Member State of origin without having been sold, and – thirdly, the advantages stemming from the use of those contributions do not offset in full the burden borne by the national product marketed on the national market when it is placed on the market, this being a matter for the referring court to ascertain. (see para. 51, operative part)