Is There Still Room Left in EU Law for Tax Autonomy of Member States’ Regional and Local Authorities?

Abstract

This article aims at determining the conditions under which local and regional authorities may exercise their taxing powers while fulfilling their obligations under European Union law. Furthermore, it seeks to assess the possibility of combining new transfers of tax competences within Member States a(MS) with the achievement of the internal market. It results from the analysis of the EU legislation and case law that, in many respects, EU law not only restricts the exercise by regional and local authorities of the autonomous taxing powers that have been allocated to them in the internal legal order but also limits the autonomy of the MS to organize the allocation of taxing powers between different levels of power.