The Need to Prevent Abusive Practices and Fraud as a Composite Justification

Abstract:

This article addresses the relations between justification grounds for direct tax restrictions on freedom of movement and the overlap of the technical requirements of their application as developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The central point of this article is that the need to prevent abusive practices and fraud can be construed as a composite of the need to safeguard the balanced allocation of taxing powers and the need to ensure effective fiscal supervision. To support this argument, a legal analysis of the case law of the CJEU will be carried out that results in a legal inventory and review of the requirements for each imperative requirement. This article then shows how the requirements for those justifications coincide and the way in which these requirements derive from general principles of European Union (EU) law.