Jurisprudencia Comunitaria sobre el Impuesto del Patrimonio. Análisis del Caso D

Abstract

European Court of Justice (ECJ) has analysed on a very few occasions a national regulation on Wealth Tax, from the perspective of non-discrimination principle and the fundamental freedoms. In July 2005, the ECJ has pronounced a judgement, known as D case, which has important consequences for the European Tax Law. Firstly, ECJ confirms that doctrine Schumacker is applicable in the field of Wealth Tax. Secondly, ECJ rejects the most-favoured-nation treatment in intra-EU tax treaty Law. The former conclusion could be deducted from the previous jurisprudence. However, the latter conclusion is a notable innovation which has generated a new debate about an old question. Therefore, the analysis of the D case is the main object of this article. We concentrate principally in the most-favoured-nation clause. In the first section we remark the preceding situation to D case. In the second section, we set out the facts and the legal context, the observations submitted to the ECJ and the opinion of the Advocate General. We examine in depth the ECJ’s reasoning, the arguments for and against the decision, the still open issues and the future developments. We conclude with some personal thoughts.