Latest blog articles
-
After the initial relief that followed upon reaching a Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom on Christmas Eve, we slowly see how this treaty is going to affect the tax domain. In this blog I will briefly focus on the area of fiscal state aid, i.e. the...
-
In the aftermath of the surge in COVID-19 related government support to businesses and just days after UK Brexit negotiators announced not to extend the deadline for the ongoing negotiations with the European Union, the European Commission launched its “White Paper on levelling the playing field as...
-
Comparing figures on corona infections and mortality can be misleading
The number of people dying in Belgium from the effects of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) is higher than in neighbouring countries. This high mortality rate makes it seem as if Belgium is not doing as well as its neighbours. The...
-
With the prevailing Coronavirus (COVID-19) it is recommended to work from home as much as possible. For frontier workers, however, working from home can be disadvantageous. This is because they then work in another country from one day to the next. International and European rules on the...
-
More than ten years after the European Court of Justice ruled that the German Eigenheimzulage was in breach of European law, the EC also started questioning its successor, the Baukindergeld. ITEM had previously concluded that the Baukindergeld was in breach of European law. We now await the...
-
In its judgment of 19 September 2019, the ECJ ruled that Dutch legislation excluding frontier workers residing in the Netherlands but working as a mini-jobber in Germany from the Dutch social security system is compatible with EU law. If the Hoge Raad follows the approach taken by the ECJ, the...
-
It is always exciting to await a final decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The judgement in C-619/18, Art. 258 TFEU infringement case against Republic of Poland, is even more of a case in point, given its relevance for the European Union values and the mechanisms designed to hold...
-
In a little more than one week we saw a series of judgements and a European Commission decision that may again test the limits of the European Union's state aid system in its application to matters of direct taxation.
-
The Polish turn away from democracy, named by Sadurski as anti-constitutional populist backsliding, has taken on a new dramatic and bold turn involving the active use of the available tools by the judges to question and address the rule of law problems in Poland. The judges seem to be fighting back...
-
The coalition agreement of Rutte-III proposed to abolish the dividend tax, but not completely... It states that this Tax will be maintained in situations of abuse, in order to prevent tax evasion. (Dutch only)