The
Court also decided that registration tax paid on a new vehicle
forms a part of its market value and that Member States must
take actual car's depreciation value into account when
calculating registration tax. (see ECJ cases Nunes Tadeu,
C-345/93; Commission v Denmark, C-47/88; and Commission v
Hellenic Republic, C-375/95)
The
following example illustrates these rules: registration tax on
a x years old car imported in one Member State cannot exceed
the amount of duty included in the residual value of a similar
used vehicle registered x years ago in that Member State.
The
Maltese car registration tax system has discriminatory effect
with respect to motor vehicles coming from the other Member
States. In Malta, the tax rate, which depends on the vehicle's
engine capacity, is the same for new and used cars. The rate
is applied on the vehicle's value, which is determined by the
Maltese authorities. However, differently from new motor
vehicles, there is a minimum amount of tax fixed only for used
cars. Even if the application of the corresponding tax rate to
the taxable value determined by the authorities results in a
smaller amount than the fixed minimum, the latter prevails.
The application of the minimum tax cannot guarantee that the
tax applied on second-hand vehicles from other Member States
will not exceed the residual tax incorporated in the value of
similar vehicles already registered in Malta, as required by
the ECJ.
An
additional aspect is the lack of transparency of the
administrative procedure which is used to determine the
taxable value of motor vehicles. The ECJ has ruled in Case
C-393/98 (Gomes Valente) that the criteria on the basis of
which the taxable value is determined have to be brought to
the knowledge of the public.
The
Commission further contests the lack of possibility for the
taxpayer to challenge the correctness of the tax due where he
believes that the assessed amount of the tax does not
correctly reflect motor vehicle's actual depreciation.
The
Commission's reference number is 2005/4534.
Similar
infringement procedures regarding discriminatory car taxation
had been opened against Cyprus, Hungary, Poland and Romania
upon their entry to the EU. The ECJ has recently declared
Polish and Hungarian tax systems incompatible with Article 90
of the EC Treaty, thus, providing the taxpayers with means to
claim before national courts the reimbursement of tax amounts
illegally collected.
So
