Principles of harmonization of EU tax law
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31617/3.2024(132)03Keywords:
legal certainty; the principle of harmonization of EU tax law; framework harmonization of EU legislation in the field of indirect taxation; minimum harmonization of Member States in the field of direct taxation.Abstract
The general relevance of the study is due to the beginning of Ukraineʼs immediate preparation for EU membership, and the scientific relevance is due to the lack of scientific developments in the Ukrainian tax law science of the principle of harmonization of EU tax law from European doctrinal approaches. The legal study is based on the hypothesis of legal certainty as the meaning of the principle of harmonization of EU tax law. The methodological tools for testing this hypothesis are based on the axiological, anthropo-socio-cultural and genetic approaches to the subject of knowledge and the general scientific principles of objectivity and historicism. The paradigmatic matrix of the principle of legal certainty as the meaning of harmonization of EU tax law is rooted in its primary law. The latter plays a system-forming role in the formation and implementation of this principle of EU law. The purpose of harmonization of the EU tax law is to ensure the functioning of the EU internal market and its fundamental economic freedoms – the free movement of labour, goods, capital and services. The main forms of manifestation of the principle of harmonization of the EU tax law are the framework harmonization of its legislation in the field of indirect taxation and the minimum harmonization of the legislation of the Member States in the field of direct taxation. The dominant role belongs to the first of them. This is due to the nature of the European Union as a civilizational phenomenon and legal space. The EU case law plays a special role in harmonizing the tax legislation of the EU and its member states. In its judgments, the EU Court of Justice has developed a universal legal matrix for this harmonization in the form of the principles of direct action and the supremacy of EU law. The EU case law crowns the framework of legal certainty in the EU tax and legal area.
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