Case law
SAC on beneficial ownership of royalties
A recent Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) judgment dealt with beneficial ownership in the context of licensing agreements. In its decision, the SAC emphasised that an entity who is unable to freely decide on the use of collected royalty payments…
SAC on VAT exemption for intra-community supply
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) did not recognise the right to VAT exemption for a supply of goods to another EU member state, as there were doubts whether the goods had been supplied to a person registered for tax in another member state,…
CJEU: Is being a board member of a public limited company an economic activity?
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the activity of a Luxembourgian board member of public limited companies is not carried out independently if the member neither acts on their own behalf and responsibility nor bears the…
SAC on application of essential costs
Several recent administrative court decisions have dealt with the question in what circumstances it is necessary to consider essential costs even if the taxpayer has failed to fully prove them. The issue was therefore addressed by an extended…
New case law on proving direct link between expense and income
Recent case law has again confirmed how difficult it can be to apply a special provision of the Income Tax Act allowing non-deductible expenses to be considered deductible up to the amount of the related income or income to be considered non-taxable…
SAC on actual supplier of gas on virtual trading point
The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has dealt with a case of determining a gas supplier when trading in this commodity on a virtual trading point in Germany. The SAC confirmed that the supplier was the person that declared themselves as the…
SAC on simultaneous technical improvement and repair of real property
In the tax administrator’s opinion, a company carrying out extensive structural modifications to a real property should treat all the work collectively as a technical improvement, and not part of it as repairs. The Supreme Administrative Court …
SAC’s landmark verdict on deadline for assessing tax
The extended chamber of the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) has dealt with the conflict between the new and old legal regulation of tax assessment deadlines. The SAC opposes existing case law according to which the 10-year time limit for tax…
Constitutional Court on concurrence of executive service agreement and employment…
The Constitutional Court confirmed that a management contract should be treated as an amendment to an executive service agreement subject to approval by the general meeting. If not approved, a usual remuneration shall be payable for the performance…
May tax administrators use traffic camera information on vehicle movements?
Following the Constitutional Court’s intervention, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) again assessed whether an administrator may for the purposes of specific tax proceedings request records on the movement of a vehicle from the Police of the…
CJEU on application of tax rate for selected beverages
The VAT Directive does not prevent member states from applying a reduced rate to selected goods and services. One of the possible criteria for classifying goods into reduced rates is the customs nomenclature. Member states may use other…
SAC on interpretation of double tax treaties
When interpreting the text of an international treaty, it is necessary to follow primarily the general rules of interpretation, i.e., use linguistic, systematic, and teleological methods. The commentaries on the OECD Model Tax Convention can only be…