QUOTE OF THE WEEK (Week XVI)

“The possibility of transferring the losses incurred by a non-resident company to a resident company entails the risk that within a group of companies losses will be transferred to companies established in the Member States which apply the highest rates of taxation and in which the tax value of the losses is therefore the highest”. (par.49)

One of the three factors that the ECJ used to justify, in principle, the lack of cross-border relief in Europe - Case C-446/03 (Marks & Spencer case) - one wonders who is being protected by such assertion - probably the high tax countries that by mere coincidence are the latest defenders of a halt in EU tax harmonization!