The justification of the means by the ends in the context of indirect taxation in COVID-19 times – a real catastrophe?

Abstract

The terms in which VAT and customs duties are carried out in the Member States of the European Union are an integral part of the regulatory framework that arises from the European Institutions, specially designed to guarantee the functioning of the Single Market, as a dimension underlying the European project. In the context of COVID-19 – in which the imports of goods necessary for the respective combat and prevention have known and are of particular practical importance –, the Union’s intervention with regard to the taxation of such imports was (and is) necessary to guarantee an appropriate response and garner effective action by Member States. This answer, at least in the context of the indirect taxation, could not be made in several voices, but rather in a single way, in front of a normative plan that, in the case of VAT, is harmonised and which, in the case of customs duties, is uniformed, in a tax integration that seems to move (or should move) towards fullness. Among the various solutions put forward by the Union, of a tax nature, in the pandemic situation, one stands out in particular, of a substantive scope (although others, of an adjective character, having been adopted), which is related to the customs relief and the VAT exemption on the import of necessary goods to combat the effects of COVID-19 in 2020. The highlight is essentially justified by reasons related to its (i) ratio legis, (ii) the corresponding teleology and also (iii) the terms in which Portugal welcomed and developed the measure. This paper will focus on each of these reasons, under the pretext of which the dimensions deemed worthy of special reflection will be addressed, in a perspective that essentially starts from proportionality considerations, aimed at assessing whether the ends justify the means.