Alstom Power Hydro v Valsts ieņēmumu dienests.
Date: 2010-01-21
14. By its question, the national court asks, essentially, whether Article 18(4) of the Sixth Directive is to be interpreted as precluding legislation of a Member State which lays down a limitation period of three years in which to make an application for the refund of excess VAT collected by, though not due to, the tax authority of that State.
15. It should, at the outset, be noted that, although, as Alstom claims, Article 18(4) of the Sixth Directive does not expressly lay down such a limitation period, that fact does not in itself permit the conclusion that the provision must be interpreted as meaning that the exercise of the right to a refund of excess VAT cannot be subject to a limitation period.
16. First, by analogy with the situation applicable to the exercise of the right to deduct, the possibility of making an application for the refund of excess VAT without any temporal limit would be contrary to the principle of legal certainty, which requires the tax position of the taxable person, having regard to his rights and obligations vis-à-vis the tax authority, not to be open to challenge indefinitely (Joined Cases C‑95/07 and C‑96/07 Ecotrade  [2008] ECR I‑3457, paragraph 44).
17. Second, it is settled case‑law that, in the absence of Community rules on the refund of national charges levied though not due, it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State, in particular, to designate the courts and tribunals having jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding rights which individuals derive from Community law, provided, that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and that they do not render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (principle of effectiveness) (see, inter alia, Case C‑228/96 Aprile  [1998] ECR I‑7141, paragraph 18, and Case C‑62/00 Marks & Spencer  [2002] ECR I‑6325, paragraph 34).
18. Concerning the principle of equivalence, it does not appear from the case‑file, nor has it been argued before the Court, that the limitation period provided for in Article 16(10) of the Law on direct and indirect taxes does not comply with that principle.
19. With regard to the principle of effectiveness, it should be pointed out that the Court has stated that it is compatible with Community law to lay down reasonable time-limits for bringing proceedings in the interests of legal certainty which protect both the taxpayer and the authorities concerned (see Case C-228/96 Aprile , paragraph 19 and the case‑law cited). Such time-limits do not make it impossible in practice or excessively difficult to exercise the rights conferred by European Union law.
20. As regards the question of what period is to be considered ‘reasonable’, it should also be pointed out that the Court has already held that a two-year time-limit cannot, in itself, render the exercise of the right to deduct virtually impossible or excessively difficult, since Article 18(2) of the Sixth Directive allows Member States to require that the taxable person exercise his right to deduct during the same period as that in which it arose (see Ecotrade , paragraph 48).
21. The same finding is all the more compelling as regards a limitation period of three years, such as that applicable in the main proceedings, since that period is, in principle, such as to permit any normally attentive taxable person validly to assert his rights derived from European Union law.
22. In the light of the foregoing, the answer to the question referred must be that Article 18(4), of the Sixth Directive is to be interpreted as not precluding legislation of a Member State, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which lays down a limitation period of three years in which to make an application for the refund of excess VAT collected by, though not due to, the tax authority of that Member State.
Costs