argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: tax - asset transfers - VAT

On 12 June 2019, in case C-185/18, the E.U. Court of Justice provided indications regarding the refusal to deduct the tax on asset transfers and on legal documents.
The applicant company having as its corporate purpose the purchase, sale, import and export of raw materials, precious stones and precious metals buys from private individuals objects having a high content of gold or other precious metals and reselling them , for the purposes of their transformation and their subsequent reintroduction into the commercial circuit, to companies specialized in the manufacture of ingots or various objects in precious metals. The regional treasury of Biscay, in Spain, had considered that the purchases of objects in gold and other metals made from private individuals in the years from 2010 to 2012 were subject to the tax on asset transfers and on legal documents. The E.U. Court of Justice found that, pursuant to art. 401 of the VAT Directive, it is not forbidden for a Member State to maintain or introduce taxes on insurance contracts, gaming and betting taxes, excise duties, registration taxes and any taxes, duties or taxes that do not have the character of volume tax business, provided that such tax, right or tax does not give rise, in trade between Member States, to formalities connected with the passage of a border. Since EU law allows for the existence of competing tax regimes, these taxes can be levied even if their collection leads to a cumulation with VAT for one and the same transaction.