ddrg/super_eurlex huggingface dataset:
Case C‑8/17

Biosafe — Indústria de Reciclagens SA

v

Flexipiso — Pavimentos SA

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Supremo Tribunal de Justiça)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Articles 63, 167, 168, 178 to 180, 182 and 219 — Principle of fiscal neutrality — Right to deduct VAT — Period allowed by national law for exercising that right — Deduction of additional VAT paid to the State that was the subject of documents rectifying the initial invoices following a tax adjustment — The date from which the period starts to run)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber), 12 April 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Rules governing exercise of the right of deduction — Temporal effect of the correction of an invoice — National legislation laying down a period for the exercise of that right which starts to run from the date of issue of the initial invoice — Refusal to grant a right to deduct after the expiry of that period — Not permissible

(Council Directive 2006/112, Arts 63, 167, 168, 178 to 180, 182 and 219)

Articles 63, 167, 168, 178 to 180, 182 and 219 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, and also the principle of fiscal neutrality, must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State pursuant to which, in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings in which, following a tax adjustment, additional value added tax (VAT) was paid to the State and was the subject of documents rectifying the initial invoices several years after the supply of the goods in question, the right to deduct VAT is to be refused on the ground that the period laid down by that legislation for the exercise of that right started to run from the date of issue of those initial invoices and had expired.

(see para. 44, operative part)
Article 10(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 November 2009 on cosmetic products must be interpreted as meaning that the recognition of equivalence of courses, laid down in that provision, can cover courses other than those delivered in third countries.

It is apparent from the very wording of that provision that the recognition of equivalence by a Member State, for the purpose of that provision, must relate to a course that is considered to be equivalent to a university course of theoretical and practical study in either pharmacy, toxicology or medicine, or a similar discipline. The EU legislature thus made the recognition of equivalence laid down in Article 10(2) of Regulation No 1223/2009 subject to requirements relating, first, to the level of the courses concerned and, second, to the category of the subjects taught during those courses. As the Advocate General observed in point 31 of his Opinion, that provision, in the light of its wording, allows account to be taken not only of the great diversity of the appropriate courses of study that already exists, but also of the way in which those courses may yet develop.

Furthermore, it must be stated that Article 10(2) of Regulation No 1223/2009 does not contain any indication as to the place where diplomas or other evidence of formal qualifications awarded on completion of a university course of theoretical and practical study or the qualification recognised as equivalent were obtained. It follows that training courses delivered both in third countries and in Member States may be recognised as equivalent to such a university course.

(see paras 31-35, 43, operative part 1)
Case C‑140/17

Szef Krajowej Administracji Skarbowej

v

Gmina Ryjewo

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Articles 167, 168 and 184 — Deduction of input tax — Adjustment — Immovable property acquired as capital goods — Initial allocation to an activity which does not confer entitlement to deduct input tax and subsequently also to an activity subject to VAT — Public body — Taxable-person status at the time of the taxable transaction)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Second Chamber), 25 July 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Deduction of input tax — Adjustment of deductions — Immovable property acquired as capital goods which can by their very nature be used both for taxable and for non-taxable activities — Body governed by public law initially using the goods for non-taxable activities — Right to adjustment — Condition — Taxable-person status at the time of the taxable transaction

(Council Directive 2006/112, Arts 167, 168 and 184)

Articles 167, 168 and 184 of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax and the principle of the neutrality of value added tax (VAT) must be interpreted as not precluding a body governed by public law from being entitled to a right to adjustment of deductions of value added tax paid on immovable property acquired as capital goods in a situation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, where, at the time of the acquisition of those goods, first, they could, by their very nature, be used both for taxable activities and for non-taxable activities but were initially used for non-taxable activities, and second, that public body had not expressly stated its intention to use those goods for a taxable activity but had also not excluded the possibility that they might be used for such a purpose, so long as it follows from an assessment of all the factual circumstances, which it is for the referring court to carry out, that the condition laid down by Article 168 of Directive 2006/112, according to which the taxable person must have acted as a taxable person at the time when it made that acquisition, is satisfied.

(see para. 59, operative part)
Case C‑302/17

PPC Power a.s.

v

Finančné riaditeľstvo Slovenskej republiky and Daňový úrad pre vybrané daňové subjekty

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Krajský súd v Bratislave)

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Environment — Directive 2003/87/EC — Scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading — Objectives — Free allocation of allowances — National legislation making transferred and unused allowances subject to taxation)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Sixth Chamber), 12 April 2018

Environment — Atmospheric pollution — Directive 2003/87 — Scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading — Method of allocation of allowances — Allocation of allowances free of charge — Principle — Scope — National legislation making transferred and unused allowances subject to taxation at 80% of their value — Unlawful

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2003/87, Recitals 5 and 20 and Arts 1 and 10)

Directive 2003/87/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 2003 establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community and amending Council Directive 96/61/EC must be interpreted as precluding national legislation, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which taxes, at 80% of their value, greenhouse gas emission allowances allocated free of charge which have been sold or not used by the undertakings subject to the greenhouse gas emission trading scheme.

By eliminating virtually all of the economic value of emission allowances, the tax amounts to a negation of the incentive mechanisms underpinning the emission allowance trading system and, consequently, to the removal of the incentives intended to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Thus deprived of 80% of the economic value of the emission allowances, undertakings lose almost all incentive to invest in measures to reduce their emissions which enable them to derive profit from the sale of their unused allowances.

Thus, it must be held that that tax has the effect of neutralising the principle of the greenhouse gas emission allowances allocated free of charge provided for in Article 10 of Directive 2003/87, and of undermining the objectives pursued by that directive.

(see paras 27-29, operative part)
Judgment of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 30 May 2018 – L’Oréal v EUIPO

(Joined Cases C-519/17 P and C-522/17 P to C-524/17 P) ( 1 )

(Appeal — EU trade mark — Opposition proceedings — Applications for registration of the word marks MASTER PRECISE, MASTER SMOKY, MASTER SHAPE, MASTER DUO and MASTER DRAMA — Earlier national figurative mark MASTERS COLORS PARIS — Rejection of the applications for registration — Inadequate statement of reasons — To be considered of the Court’s own motion)

Appeal–Grounds–Inadequate or contradictory grounds–Admissibility–Scope of the obligation to state reasons

(Art. 256 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.)

(see para. 67)

Operative part

The Court:

1. Sets aside the orders of the General Court of the European Union of 26 June 2017, L’Oréal v EUIPO — Guinot (MASTER PRECISE) (T‑181/16, not published, EU:T:2017:447), L’Oréal v EUIPO — Guinot (MASTER SMOKY) (T‑179/16, not published, EU:T:2017:445), L’Oréal v EUIPO — Guinot (MASTER SHAPE) (T‑180/16, not published, EU:T:2017:451), L’Oréal v EUIPO — Guinot (MASTER DUO) (T‑182/16, not published, EU:T:2017:448), and L’Oréal v EUIPO — Guinot (MASTER DRAMA) (T‑183/16, not published, EU:T:2017:449);

2. Refers Cases T‑181/16, T‑179/16, T‑180/16, T‑182/16 and T‑183/16 back to the General Court of the European Union;

3. Costs are reserved.

( 1 ) OJ C 424, 11.12.2017.
2.

EU trade mark—Appeals procedure—Action before the EU judicature—Jurisdiction of the General Court—Review of the lawfulness of decisions of the Boards of Appeal—Re-examination of the facts in the light of evidence not previously submitted before EUIPO bodies—Precluded (Council Regulation No 207/2009, Art. 65) (see para. 35)
EU law, in particular Article 288 TFEU, must be interpreted as meaning that a national court, hearing a dispute between private persons, which finds that it is unable to interpret the provisions of its national law that are contrary to a provision of a directive that satisfies all the conditions required for it to produce direct effect in a manner that is compatible with that provision, is not obliged, solely on the basis of EU law, to disapply those provisions of national law and a clause to be found, as a consequence of those provisions of national law, in an insurance contract. In a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, a party adversely affected by the incompatibility of national law with EU law or a person subrogated to the rights of that party could however rely on the case-law arising from the judgment of 19 November 1991, Francovich and Others (C‑6/90 and C‑9/90, EU:C:1991:428), in order to obtain from the Member State, if justified, compensation for any loss sustained.

The Court has expressly held that a directive cannot be relied on in a dispute between individuals for the purpose of setting aside legislation of a Member State that is contrary to that directive (see, to that effect, judgment of 27 February 2014, OSA, C‑351/12, EU:C:2014:110, paragraph 48). A national court is obliged to set aside a provision of national law that is contrary to a directive only where that directive is relied on against a Member State, the organs of its administration, such as decentralised authorities, or organisations or bodies which are subject to the authority or control of the State or which have been required by a Member State to perform a task in the public interest and, for that purpose, possess special powers beyond those which result from the normal rules applicable to relations between individuals (see, to that effect, judgments of 24 January 2012, Dominguez, C‑282/10, EU:C:2012:33, paragraphs 40 and 41; of 25 June 2015, Indėlių ir investicijų draudimas and Nemaniūnas, C‑671/13, EU:C:2015:418, paragraphs 59 and 60; and of 10 October 2017, Farrell, C‑413/15, EU:C:2017:745, paragraphs 32 to 42).

(see paras 44, 45, 57, operative part)
Articles 10 to 12 of Council Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) and amending and repealing certain regulations must be interpreted as precluding Member States, when implementing those articles, from adopting measures making it possible to transfer, by inheritance, support for early retirement such as that at issue in the main proceedings.

Thus, first, Article 11(1) of the regulation sets out conditions which are all linked to the person of the transferor of a farm.

Secondly, while it fixes a total period of 15 years for the payment of early retirement support, Article 12(2) of Regulation No 1257/1999 also lays down a second temporal limitation, namely that the payment may not go beyond the 75th birthday of the transferor of a farm. That provision may not therefore be interpreted as giving rise to an unrestricted right to the payment of early retirement support for a period of 15 years. It not only emphasises the temporary nature of that support, but also implies a fortiori that the death of the transferor of a farm brings its payment to an end.

Thirdly, the objectives of Regulation No 1257/1999 also lead to the conclusion that early retirement support may not be the subject of a transfer by inheritance.

First of all, Article 10(1) of the regulation sets a number of objectives for the early retirement support measure, namely, to provide an income for elderly farmers who decide to stop farming, to encourage the replacement of elderly farmers by farmers able to improve, where necessary, the viability of the remaining agricultural holdings and to reassign agricultural land to non‑agricultural uses where it cannot be farmed under satisfactory conditions of economic viability.

Next, the Court has concluded from the existence of those various objectives that the EU legislature intended to encourage early retirement in the farming sector in order to improve the viability of agricultural holdings and to create an economic incentive to older farmers to cease their activities early, and in circumstances in which they would not ordinarily do so, the supplement to the retirement pension or additional income being only one of the consequences of the application of Regulation No 1257/1999 (see, to that effect, judgment of 7 July 2016, Poland v Commission, C‑210/15 P, not published, EU:C:2016:529, paragraph 39).

It follows that, first, early retirement support is granted to the transferor of a farm on the basis of conditions that are strictly personal to him and, secondly, the defining objective of that support is not to supplement the income of that transferor. Therefore, in view of its personal nature, that support may not be passed on to the heirs of the transferor of the farm in the event of his death.

(see paras 40-46, operative part 1)
Article 168 and Article 173(2)(c) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as meaning that, first, even where the general costs relating to supplies of moveable goods by hire purchase, such as the supplies at issue in the main proceedings, are passed on not in the amount due by the customer in respect of the supply of the goods concerned, that is to say the taxable part of the transaction, but in the amount of the interest due in respect of the ‘finance’ part of the transaction, that is to say the exempt part thereof, those general costs must nonetheless be considered, for the purposes of value added tax (VAT), to be a component of the price of that supply and, second, Member States may not apply a method of apportionment which does not take account of the initial value of the goods concerned when they are supplied, since that method is not capable of ensuring a more precise apportionment than that which would arise from the application of the turnover-based allocation key.

Thus, any Member State which decides to authorise or compel the taxable person to make the deduction on the basis of the use made of all or part of the goods and services must ensure that the method for calculating the right to deduct makes it possible to ascertain with the greatest possible precision the portion of VAT relating to transactions in respect of which VAT is deductible. The principle of neutrality, which forms an integral part of the common system of VAT, requires that the method by which the deduction is calculated objectively reflects the actual share of the expenditure resulting from the acquisition of mixed use goods and services that may be attributed to transactions in respect of which VAT is deductible (see, to that effect, judgment of 10 July 2014, Banco Mais, C‑183/13, EU:C:2014:2056, paragraphs 30 and 31).

In that regard, the Court has nevertheless specified that the method chosen must not necessarily be the most precise possible, but that, as is apparent from paragraph 51 of this judgment, it must be able to guarantee a more precise result than the result which would arise from the application of the turnover-based allocation key (see, to that effect, judgment of 9 June 2016, Wolfgang und Dr. Wilfried Rey Grundstücksgemeinschaft, C‑332/14, EU:C:2016:417, paragraph 33).

In particular, in the light of the fundamental nature of the right to deduct, recalled in paragraph 39 of this judgment, where the method by which the deduction is calculated does not take account of an actual and non-negligible allocation of a share of the general costs to transactions giving rise to a right to deduct, such a method cannot be regarded as objectively reflecting the actual share of the expenditure resulting from the acquisition of mixed use goods and services that may be attributed to those transactions. Consequently, such a method is not capable of ensuring a more precise apportionment than that which would arise from the application of the turnover-based allocation key.

(see paras 52, 53, 57, 59, operative part)
Case C‑528/17

Milan Božičevič Ježovnik

v

Republika Slovenija

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Vrhovno sodišče)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Value added tax (VAT) — Directive 2006/112/EC — Article 143(1)(d) — Exemption from import VAT — Importation followed by an intra-Community supply — Risk of tax evasion — Good faith of the taxable importer and supplier — Assessment — Duty of care of the taxable importer and supplier)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Ninth Chamber), 25 October 2018

Harmonisation of fiscal legislation — Common system of value added tax — Exemptions — Exemptions on importation — Importation followed by an intra-Community supply — Prior examination by the competent authorities — Exemption authorisation issued after a prior examination in the light of evidence provided by the taxable importer and supplier — Subsequent examination finds that the substantive conditions had not been met — No obligation for the taxable person to pay the tax a posteriori — Condition — Taxable person’s good faith and compliance with his duty of care — Verification a matter for the national court

(Council Directive 2006/112, as amended by Directive 2009/69, Art. 143(1)(d))

Article 143(1)(d) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax, as amended by Council Directive 2009/69/EC of 25 June 2009, must be interpreted to the effect that, in circumstances where the taxable importer and supplier benefitted from an exemption from import value added tax on the basis of an authorisation issued after a prior examination by the competent customs authorities in the light of the evidence provided by that taxable person, the latter is not required to pay value added tax after the event where it is revealed, during a subsequent examination, that the substantive conditions for the exemption had not been met, except where it is established, in the light of objective evidence, that that taxable person knew, or should have known, that the supplies subsequent to the imports at issue were involved in fraud committed by the customer and that he did not take all reasonable steps in his power to avoid that fraud, which is a matter for the referring court to determine.

(see paragraph 49, operative part)
Case C‑287/17

Česká pojišťovna a.s.

v

WCZ, spol. s r.o.

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the Okresní soud v Českých Budějovicích)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Company law — Combating late payments in commercial transactions — Directive 2011/7/EU — Article 6(1) and (3) — Reimbursement of debt recovery costs — Costs resulting from reminders sent on account of late payment by a debtor)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (Ninth Chamber), 13 September 2018

Approximation of laws — Combating late payments in commercial transactions — Directive 2011/7 — Right to compensation for recovery costs — Costs associated with sending reminders due to late payment — Possibility of obtaining reasonable compensation over and above the fixed amount

(European Parliament and Council Directive 2011/7, Recital 19 and Art. 6)

Article 6 of Directive 2011/7/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 on combating late payment in commercial transactions must be interpreted as recognising that a creditor claiming compensation for the costs associated with sending reminders to a debtor due to the latter’s late payment is entitled to obtain reasonable compensation, on that basis and in addition to the fixed amount of EUR 40 laid down in Article 6(1) of that directive, for the purposes of Article 6(3) thereof, in respect of the part of those costs which exceeds that fixed amount.

Moreover, the fact that recital 19 of Directive 2011/7 states that that directive should determine a fixed minimum sum for the recovery of administrative costs and the compensation of the internal costs incurred due to late payment does not preclude reasonable compensation of those costs from being awarded to the creditor in so far as that fixed minimum sum is insufficient. In addition, although that recital states that compensation in the form of a fixed sum should aim at limiting the administrative and internal costs linked to the recovery, that assertion must, however, be read in the light of the recital as a whole. It follows that, by that clarification, the EU legislature simply emphasised that the automatic nature of the fixed compensation of EUR 40 constitutes an incentive for a creditor to limit his recovery costs to that sum, but does not preclude the possibility for that creditor to obtain, where appropriate, an amount of reasonable compensation which is greater than this but is not awarded automatically.

(see paras 36-38, operative part)
Case C‑679/17

Vlaams Gewest and Vlaams Gewest

v

Johannes Huijbrechts

(Request for a preliminary ruling from the hof van beroep te Antwerpen)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Free movement of capital — Restrictions — Tax legislation — Inheritance tax — Sustainably managed woodland — Exemption — Protection of wooded areas)

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 22 November 2018

Free movement of capital and liberalisation of payments — Restrictions — Tax legislation — Inheritance tax — National legislation providing for a tax advantage for inherited woodland on condition of sustainable management — Limitation to woodland in the Member State of residence of the taxpayer — Not permissible

(Art. 63 TFEU)

Article 63 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which grants a tax advantage for inherited woodland on condition that it is the subject of sustainable management as defined by national law, but restricts that advantage to woodland situated in the territory of that Member State.

(see para. 43, operative part)