Tax cases

Tax linked aid

In the Netherlands a tax was levied on the delivery of waste to waste-treatment plants. The European Commission was still discussing whether certain exemptions from the tax constituted state aid when the tax became law. The rate of tax was higher than originally planned. In the first case the claimant a domestic waste collector claimed a tax refund on the ground that the tax charged was in breach of the last sentence of Article 88(3) of the Sixth Directive.

The European Court of Justice held that a litigant who was unaffected by distortion of cross-border competition could rely on Article 88(3). An individual could rely on the article to erase distortion of competition created by unlawful aid and also to obtain a tax refund levied in breach of that provision. Furthermore for a tax to be regarded as...