Logstor ROR Polska sp. z o.o. v Dyrektor Izby Skarbowej w Katowicach.
Date: 2011-06-16
30. In that respect, it is sufficient to note that it is not for the Court of Justice, in the context of the judicial cooperation established by Article 267 TFEU, to call back into question or to verify the accuracy of the interpretation of national law made by the referring court (see, to that effect, Case C‑449/06 Gysen  [2008] ECR I‑553, paragraph 17, and Case C‑11/07 Eckelkamp and Others  [2008] ECR I‑6845, paragraph 32).
33. That date, which is taken as the relevant date under Article 4(2) of Directive 69/335, is equally applicable to the Polish Republic. In the case of accession, a reference to a date laid down in Community law, in the absence of a provision to the contrary in the Act of Accession or some other Community document, applies equally to the State which is acceding, even if that date is earlier than the date of its accession (Case C‑366/05 Optimus – Telecomunicações  [2007] ECR I‑4985, paragraph 32). As regards the Polish Republic, no provision which differs on that point is to be found either in the Act of Accession or in any other document.
34. In so far as loan transactions such as those at issue in the main proceedings were, on 1 July 1984, subject to taxation as referred to in Article 4(2) of Directive 69/335, the Republic of Poland could therefore, at the time of its accession to the Union, decide to continue to make transactions of that type subject to capital duty.
36. Article 4(2) of Directive 69/335, the wording of which refers to the concept of continuity, must be interpreted in the light of the objective of limiting or abolishing capital duty set out in the second and third recitals of Directive 85/303. In the light of that objective, it is apparent from the third recital that it was only by reason of the budgetary difficulties they would be faced with if capital duty were abolished that Member States which had not waived the levying of that duty could maintain such taxation.
37. The words ‘may … continue to be subject to capital duty’, appearing in Article 4(2) of Directive 69/335 must thus be interpreted as implying that, in order to be capable of being subjected to capital duty by Member States, the transactions referred to in that paragraph must not only have been taxable, for the purposes of that provision, by virtue of the national law in force at 1 July 1984, but must also subsequently have been continuously subject to such taxation. Otherwise, the Member State would not be able to demonstrate a loss of receipts necessitating the maintenance of the capital duty.
38. The reference to the date of 1 July 1984 made in Article 4(2) of Directive 69/335 cannot therefore constitute for Member States which, at that date, made the transactions in question subject to capital duty an authorisation to reintroduce such a duty after waiving it, which would go against the wording of that provision and the objective of limiting or abolishing capital duty pursued by the said directive.
39. It follows that a Member State which has, in accordance with Article 7(2) of Directive 69/335, waived subjecting certain transactions to capital duty after 1 July 1984 cannot reestablish such taxation on the same transactions.