Press Release: Taxes on company capital: Commission decides to refer Greece to Court of Justice

The European Commission on 21 March 2005 decided to take Greece to the Court of Justice because its tax legislation applicable to the raising of capital did not conform with EU law. At the time, Greece applied capital duty when a company transferred its registered office or place of effective management to Greece and applied a general exemption from capital duty to agricultural and maritime companies. The Commission considered that these rules were contrary to the Directive concerning indirect taxes on the raising of capital (69/335/EEC) which allowed Member States to subject only the formation of companies, not their transfer, to capital duty and did not allow Greece to exempt specific economic sectors from the tax. Greece had not made the necessary changes to its legislation despite the Commission's formal request of December 2004 (see IP/05/38).