Pregledni rad
Local Taxes And The European Community Law
Otto Taucher
; Pravni fakultet Karl-Franzens Sveučilišta u Grazu, Austrija
Sažetak
When Croatia completes its accession to the European Union, it will be necessary to consider the community law of the Union in the course of any debate about Croatian local taxes. In case of incompatibility of national laws with the provisions based on the community law that are extensively defined by the case law of the European Court of Justice, national implementation bodies (public administration, courts) must apply these provisions directly. Thus, there is no room for any national legislation. Contrary to that, national legislature has to transfer (within the stipulated deadlines) into the national legal system primarily those directives and their provisions that are not applied directly, in accordance with the case law of the European Court of Justice. Case law of the European Court of Justice has confirmed the obsoleteness of the idea that because local tax acts are territorially limited, they are exempted from direct applicability of the primary European law. With regard to that, it is important to mention the decision of the European Court of Justice C-72/03 (2004) on the free transport of goods (Article 28ff of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (Lisbon Treaty)) and decisions C-17/00 (2001), C-134/03 (2005), C-544/03 (2005) and C-169/08 (2009) on the freedom of service provision (Article 56ff of the Treaty). Prohibition of subsidies and other state grants according to Article 107ff of the Treaty also has direct impact on local tax acts. Directly applicable
provisions (provisions of secondary law) contained in Article 401 of the VAT Directive (2006/112/EG), Articles 1/2 and 1/3 of the Excise Tax Directive, and Article 14 of the Waste Management Directive (2008/98/EG; European Court of Justice C-254/08, 2009) are already well defined. In order to prevent the issues of state’s responsibility due to omissions in Croatian legislation, Croatian legislators must integrate the provisions defined in Article 9 of the Water Framework Directive related to determination of utility charges into national law. This ought to be done in a manner that would stimulate efficient water
and wastewater management and that would provide for fair distribution of the charges. Depending on the quantity of produced wastewater, there should be different groups of consumers – industry, agriculture, households, etc. It appears that Article 9 of the Water Framework Directive is not defined in so many details that it could be directly applicable following the decisions of the European Court of Justice.
Ključne riječi
local tax law; local taxes; the EU Community law; primary law; secondary law; Water Framework Directive; Waste Framework Directive
Hrčak ID:
132478
URI
Datum izdavanja:
16.6.2011.
Posjeta: 2.031 *