The Hungarian advertising tax and the Polish tax levied in the retail sector do not violate EU law on state aid, the Luxembourg-based court of the European Union announced its decision on Tuesday. The European Commission declared both taxes incompatible with the common market as state aid.
In 2014, Hungary adopted the Advertising Tax Act, according to which companies were obliged to pay a tax depending on their advertising revenue. Following the international trend, Poland also imposed a tax on businesses similar to the Hungarian advertising tax, which is calculated not on profit, but on sales revenue, and which has a progressive structure. The European Commission declared both taxes incompatible with the common market as state aid.
In its ruling on Tuesday, the EU court confirmed the previous court ruling and declared the decisions of the EU commission null and void, because it found no evidence that the Polish and Hungarian measures were designed in a discriminatory manner. Consequently, the appeals against the judgments challenged by the Brussels panel were rejected in their entirety by the EU court.
MTI
