BORGARTING LAGMANNSRETT - Domstolene

hensyn til hva som kan begrunnes ut fra sammenhengen i skattesystemet og at
generaladvokater nå argumenterer for en rehabilitering av begrepet. Lagmannsretten
gjengir følgende:
In this respect the Court can be critized for creating an unacceptable level of
unpredictability, in particular as the concept of restriction in not the only source of
uncertainty. Confusion seems to extend to the issue of justification where the Court
accepted the fiscal cohesion justification in the case of Bachmann but made it to a
large extent redundant in later cases such as Baars and Verkooijen, with the result
that Advocates General have started to argue for its rehabilitation. Yet, as stated by
Advocate General Geelhoed, ´predictability and legal certainty are crucially
important´ for this area of law, as Member States need to be able to plan their
budgets and design their ´tax systems on the basis of relatively reliable revenue
predictions.´
I samme retning går Suzanne Kingston i ”Common Market Law Review 44” for 2007 fra
side 1321 i en artikkel med tittel ”A light in the darkness: Recent Developments in the
ECJ`s direct Tax Jurisprudence”. Hennes synspunkt er at skatt har vært ansett for å høre til
den nasjonale suverenitet, at det har vært en rask utvikling og ofte på en uforutsigbar måte,
samt at statene ikke kunne forventes å forutse utviklingen, og også at konsekvensene av de
frie friheter bare gradvis har blitt klarlagt. Hun konkluderer med at før EF-domstolens dom
avsagt 11. mars 2004 i sak C-9/02 de Lasteyrie de Saillant – dommen er nevnt som en den
gang utrykt dom i Fokus Bank premiss 32, men lagmannsretten finner ikke grunn til å
gjengi noe fra denne dommen – var brudd på fellesskapsrettens kildeskattregler ikke
”tilstrekkelig alvorlig” til å utløse ansvar. Det samme mener hun gjelder
forskjellsbehandling med hensyn til godtgjørelsesfradrag før Verkooijen, Lenz og
Manninen, dommer som hun altså ser i sammenheng:
(…) As well known, direct tax remains one of the most closely-protected areas of
Member State competence, considered by many to be central to national
sovereignty.
(…)
In recent years, however, the area has been pushed into the spotlight for two,
perhaps not unrelated reson: first, there has been an explosion in the number of
direct tax cases lodged before the Court (almost all of them preliminary references);
second, certain of the Court´s judgements have been viewed as worringly unclear
and have been subject to trenchant criticism. (side 1321 og 1322)
(…)
(…) Significantly, the fact that the Court`s direct tax case law has evolved rapidly
(and often in a rather unpredictable manner) since the mid-1990s, has led it to
indicate, in those cases where the issue has arisen, that the breach was unlikely to
be ”sufficiently serioues”. This is on the ground that the relevant Member State
could not, in the light of the Court`s case law at the time when the national rules
where in force, have been expected to predict that such national legislation would
subsequently be held to contravene Community law. As the Court held in FII Test
Claimants, in deciding whether a breach is sufficiently seroious, ”the national court
must take into account the fact that, in a field such as direct taxation, the
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