22.2.2014

Official Journal of the European Union

C 52/18

(Case C-437/12)

(Internal taxation - Article 110 TFEU - Registration duty - Similar domestic products - Neutrality of the tax between imported used automobile vehicles and similar vehicles already present on the national market)

2014/C 52/29

Language of the case: Dutch

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Re:

Reference for a preliminary ruling — Gerechtshof te’s Hertogenbosch (Netherlands) — Interpretation of Article 110 TFEU — Domestic taxation — National legislation imposing a registration levy at the time of the first use of a vehicle on the national road network — Amount of the levy based, as from 2010, on CO₂ emissions — Vehicle first used on the roads outside the Netherlands in 2006 and registered in 2010 for use within national territory.

Operative part of the judgment

1.For the purpose of applying Article 110 TFEU, the similar domestic products which are comparable to a used vehicle such as the one at issue in the main proceedings, which was first put into service before 1 February 2008 and was imported and registered in the Netherlands in 2010, are the vehicles already present on the Netherlands market whose characteristics are closest to those of the vehicle in question.

2.Article 110 TFEU must be interpreted as precluding a tax, such as the passenger-car and motorcycle tax (belasting personenauto’s en motorrijwielen) as in force in 2010, if and in so far as the amount of that tax levied on used imported vehicles upon their registration in the Netherlands exceeds the lowest residual amount of BPM incorporated into the value of similar used vehicles already registered in that same Member State.

(1) OJ C 399, 22.12.2012.