M.G.H. Schaper

Holding complexity: analysing the CJEU's VAT case law as a network

In this article, we explore the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on value added tax using network analysis. We carry out a case study on the collection of rulings dealing with the VAT treatment of holding companies and economic activities. We construct a case-to-case network and we identify the most important cases of this topic-specific collection of VAT cases. We make a contribution to knowledge by showing how the construction of a paragraph-to-paragraph network and the application of a community detection algorithm effectively assist in identifying core judicial rules in the CJEUs case law.

Data protection rights and tax information Exchange in the European Union: An Uneasy Combination

Tax administrations in the European Union exchange an ever-increasing amount of information on taxation matters on a mandatory and automatic basis. This development gives rise to data protection concerns. The aim of this article is to examine how these data protection concerns have been recognized by the Union legislator in the recent and fast process towards a comprehensive automatic exchange of tax data of private taxpayers in the European Union. It will be shown that the combination of data protection rights and exchange of tax information legislation proves to be an uneasy one as the Union legislator appears reluctant to provide for data protection safeguards in Union legislation on tax information exchange.

Hof van Justitie erkent meestbegunstigingsverplichting in het EU-recht: de zaak Sopora

Het Hof van Justitie heeft in zijn arrest Sopora geoordeeld dat een verschillende behandeling van twee buitenlanders discriminatoir kan zijn. Daarmee heeft het Hof van Justitie effectief een verdragsrechtelijke verplichting tot meestbegunstiging geschapen. De reikwijdte van deze verplichting is echter onzeker wanneer deze wordt bezien in het licht van eerder door het Hof van Justitie gewezen jurisprudentie in directe belastingzaken.