Extraordinary reopening of tax assessment

Case no. BS-14283/2018-HJR
Judgment delivered on 21 March 2019

A
vs.
The Danish Ministry of Taxation

With reference to indicative guidelines from 2013, the tax authorities had reopened A’s tax assessments for the 2010-2013 income years. This case concerned whether the tax authorities also had a duty to reopen his tax assessments for the 1999-2009 income years.

The issue in the case was particularly if the practice applicable up to 2013 for the treatment of a taxpayer’s personal allowance in a situation like A’s, where he was resident in Denmark, but where the income had essentially been earned in another EU/EEA country, could be considered definitively overruled already by judgments of the European Court of Justice in 2002-2004, and not only by the indicative guidelines from 2013.

The Supreme Court stated, among other things, that the ECJ’s judgments had not in fact overruled the Danish practice applicable until 2013. The Supreme Court also stated that, against this background, it could not be established only with reference to these judgements from the ECJ that A’s case involved such exceptional circumstances that his tax assessments could be reopened for previous income years.

The Supreme Court also noted that there were also no exceptional circumstances justifying extraordinary reopening of the tax assessments.

On this basis, the Supreme Court found that the conditions for extraordinary reopening for the income years prior to 2010 were not met.

The High Court had reached the same conclusion.