Congratulations to Annika Streicher for winning the 2023 IFA Maurice Lauré Prize
On 21 October 2023 IFA announced Annika Streicher is the winner of its prestigious Maurice Lauré Award, for her book “Cross-Border Juridical VAT Double Taxation in the Framework of European Law”, published by IBFD in the WU Tax Law and Policy Series.
Despite harmonisation, the EU common VAT system leaves room for double taxation, which remains in a limbo and produces distortive effects, both in the EU Internal Market and in relations with non-EU Member States. This book singles out the specific issues that arise in this context and addresses them with innovative solutions.
Double taxation arises especially at the intersection between different implementations of the VAT common system in EU Member States and in connection with cross-border disparities. The book groups all double taxation issues into five categories and reviews them in the light of CJEU case law on fundamental rights (freedom to conduct a business, right to property and equality before the law) and fundamental freedoms (primarily: goods and services).
Since the compatibility with primary law must be proofed also in areas regulated by secondary law, there might still be room to address some types of double taxation at the level of interpretation. The book also suggests an ambitious plan to address them with direct access of taxpayers to the judicial institutions of the EU. All remaining issues might be solved by introducing a dispute settlement mechanism into the VAT Directive and an external VAT treaty, applicable to the relations with third countries.
Pasquale Pistone, IBFD Academic Chairman, noted: “This book concretely shows that double taxation exists also in a harmonised domain, such as the EU VAT common systems. No one can ignore that any longer. Moreover, its grouping of double taxation cases is an important scientific achievement, which might facilitate a quality approach to address the relevant problems in the future.”
If you are conducting research that meets the highest academic standards and are interested in publishing with IBFD, please contact us at academic@ibfd.org.