Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Community law - Direct effect - Customs duties and charges incompatible with Community law - Repayment - Detailed rules - Application of national law - Requirements regarding time-limits and procedure which are less favourable than those applying to actions between private individuals for recovery of sums paid but not due - Whether permissible - Conditions

2 Community law - Direct effect - National duties and taxes incompatible with Community law - Repayment - Detailed rules - Application of national law - Amendments, introducing less favourable conditions of repayment, adopted subsequent to a declaration by the Court that a particular tax is incompatible with the Treaty - Whether permissible - Conditions

3 Community law - Direct effect - Customs duties and charges incompatible with Community law - Repayment - Detailed rules - Application of national law - Conditions - Onus on taxpayer to prove that the charges have not been passed on - Not permissible

4 Community law - Direct effect - Customs duties and charges incompatible with Community law - Repayment - Detailed rules - Application of national law - Requirement that the claim for reimbursement be sent to the competent authority - Permissible

Summary

1 Community law does not preclude national provisions from making repayment of customs duties or taxes contrary to Community law subject to less favourable time-limits and procedural conditions than those laid down for actions between private individuals for recovery of sums paid but not due, provided that those conditions apply in the same way to actions for repayment which are based on Community law and to those based on national law and do not make it impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the right to repayment.

2 Community law does not preclude the adoption by a Member State, following judgments of the Court declaring duties or charges to be contrary to Community law, of provisions which render the conditions for repayment applicable to those duties and charges less favourable than those which would otherwise have been applied, provided that the duties and charges in question are not specifically targeted by that amendment and the new provisions do not make it impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the right to repayment.

3 Community law precludes a Member State from making repayment of customs duties and taxes contrary to Community law subject to a condition, such as the requirement that such duties or taxes have not been passed on to third parties, which the claimant must show he has satisfied.

To place upon the taxpayer the burden of establishing that the duties or charges unduly paid have not been passed on to other persons has the effect of making it virtually impossible or excessively difficult to secure repayment.

4 Community law does not preclude the imposition, in the case of claims for repayment of customs duties or taxes contrary to Community law, of the non-retroactive requirement which, if not fulfilled, renders the claim inadmissible, that notice thereof be given to the tax authority which received the tax return of the person concerned for the year in question.

In so far as such a procedural requirement applies to all claims for repayment based on either national law or Community law, it does not have the effect of depriving the persons concerned of the benefit of the practical application of Community law or of making their position less favourable than if they were seeking repayment of duties or taxes contrary to domestic law.