Riccardo Prisco Srl v Amministrazione delle Finanze dello Stato (C-216/99) and Ministero delle Finanze v CASER SpA (C-222/99).
Date: 2002-09-10
56 They would of course not be paid by way of fees or dues if it were clear that the registry fees also paid for those operations already covered the entire costs of the service rendered. However, contrary to the Commission's submissions at the hearing, in the absence of harmonisation of the methods of collecting duties paid by way of fees or dues, the Member States are free to collect several payments in parallel for the service rendered, as long as the total does not exceed the actual cost of providing it (see, to that effect, with reference to charges payable for customs formalities, Case C-209/89 Commission v Italy [1991] ECR I-1575, paragraph 10). Consequently, the mere fact that registry fees are charged in parallel in respect of the same registrations as those for which retroactive administrative charges are levied does not suffice to show that the latter are not duties paid by way of fees or dues permitted by Article 12(1)(e) of the Directive.
66 The Court then said that, according to information provided by the Italian Government and not disputed, a time-limit similar to that at issue applied also to actions for repayment of certain indirect taxes, and that it did not appear from the wording of Article 13 of Decree No 641/1972 that it applied only to actions based on Community law. The Court also said that it was clear from the case-law of the Corte suprema di cassazione that the time-limits relating to taxes applied also to actions for repayment of charges or dues levied under laws that had been declared incompatible with the Italian constitution (Edis, paragraph 38).
67 In those circumstances, the Court held that Community law does not prohibit a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law by relying on a time-limit under national law of three years, by way of derogation from the ordinary rules governing actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, for which the period allowed is more favourable, provided that that time-limit applies in the same way to actions based on Community law for repayment of such charges as to those based on national law (Edis, paragraph 39).
70 The answer to the national court's question must therefore be the same as in Edis, namely that Community law does not prohibit a Member State from resisting actions for repayment of charges levied in breach of Community law by relying on a time-limit under national law of three years, by way of derogation from the ordinary rules governing actions between private individuals for the recovery of sums paid but not due, for which the period allowed is more favourable, provided that that time-limit applies in the same way to actions based on Community law for repayment of such charges as to those based on national law.
The rules for calculating interest on repayments
Observations submitted to the Court
77 However, as the Court also held, a Member State may not adopt provisions making repayment of a tax held to be contrary to Community law by a judgment of the Court, or whose incompatibility with Community law is apparent from such a judgment, subject to conditions relating specifically to that tax which are less favourable than those which would otherwise be applied to repayment of the tax in question (see Edis, paragraph 24, Aprile, paragraph 26, and Dilexport, paragraph 39).