Fiat Chrysler on Tuesday won its fight against an EU order to pay 30 million euros ($30 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg, dealing a major setback to yet another of attempt by EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager to interfere in tax deals between EU countries and multinationals.
Judges faulted the EU competition watchdog for its analysis of the reference system used to determine whether Luxembourg had given a selective advantage to Fiat.
“Only the national law applicable in the member state concerned must be taken into account in order to identify the reference system for direct taxation, that identification being itself an essential prerequisite for assessing not only the existence of an advantage, but also whether it is selective in nature,” they said.
Vestager’s high profile cases include her record 13-billion-euro tax order for Apple and Amazon’s Luxembourg deal. Both subsequently won their challenges at a lower tribunal. The Commission has appealed to the CJEU, with rulings due in the coming years.
MacDailyNews Take: Ditzy Vestager is excellent at losing.
A company’s business success, regardless of degree, doesn’t mean some quasi-governmental political confederation headed by a dingbat gets to retroactively grab whatever sum they want. – MacDailyNews, July 15, 2020
The dunce Vestager is out of her depth.
Is Ireland its own country or merely a vassal state to a quasi-governmental political confederation that’s already been hit with one very significant defection?
The EU’s retroactive tax grab is a farce. — MacDailyNews, October 4, 2017
I think that Apple was targeted here. And I think that (anti-US sentiment) is one reason why we could have been targeted. People in leadership positions in several countries tell me that this is the agenda. I don’t know where that comes from. But what I feel strongly about is that this decision was politically based, of that I’m very confident. There is no reason for it in fact or in law… At a worldwide level, Apple pays income tax of 26.1 percent… I’d be the first to say that the tax system needs to be reformed and that it should be made simple and straightforward. But it should be talked about going forward, not in a way that retrofits the law to what others wish it was. It’s patently unfair and not what you expect from a developed country that has a history of rule and law. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, September 1, 2016
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What’s not to like about state-ism…it’s so progressive, but ironically, it always ends up in the same way/same place.