European justice returns changing the plan according to competition services European Commission. Inside front view, Juliane Kokott, General Counsel at the EU Court of Justice (CJEU), concludes: The European Commission got it wrong by declaring Luxembourg had forgiven Amazon illegal state aid in the form of financial benefitsOffers to reject the Community Executive’s appeal and uphold the General Court’s annulment, which overturned the decision forcing the group to return to the Grand Duchy coffers. 250 million € that’s why Brussels considered illegal tax breaks.
The lawsuit was filed in October 2017 by the European Commission of Luxembourg’s tax benefits granted to Amazon in a 2003 provisional tax decision. state aid Which do not comply with OECD principles of free competition and give a selective advantage to the subsidiary of the multinational company. Both the Luxembourg Government and the company annulment case Before the EU General Court, which decided to annul the decision in May 2021. As they decided on Thursday, the European Commission did not show that the agreement artificially reduced the tax burden.
Still, the rival services decided to fight and appeal. In his initial conclusions, the Attorney General concluded that Brussels was “accidentally” Luxembourg national law when examining the existence of a selective advantage. “As a result of this error, all other observations in the Commission’s decision also contain legal errors. As a result, the General Court rightly overturned the judgment – albeit for other reasons – because of its existence. a selective advantage”, points to the lawyer who thinks that the CJEU should not decide whether the grounds objected to by the Commission are valid or not.
The lawyer also decided that the European Commission’s objection was unfounded.. While Luxembourg openly admits that the method chosen in the provisional tax decision was not clearly erroneous and not materially misapplied, “only clearly erroneous provisional tax decisions can constitute a taxpayer selective advantage, given the tax autonomy of Member States. Therefore, the Commission could not prove in its decision that the “early tax decision gave a selective advantage in favor of Amazon.
Until the final decision to be made in the coming months, the CJEU’s final decisions in this area do not bode well for the Community Executive.. At the beginning of last November, the CJEU made the mistake of reaffirming the General Court’s decision in Brussels that the multinational car Fiat should return to Luxembourg the unpaid €30m in tax due to the tax benefits that the multinational car Fiat has enjoyed through another decision expected in fiscal 2012. came to the conclusion.