Commission takes legal action against Portugal before CJEU for discriminatory legislation on car registration tax

The European Commission announced today its decision to refer Portugal to the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in the context of an infringement procedure related to Portuguese registration tax rules for imported second-hand cars.

The European Commission considers that Portugal infringes the prohibition of discriminatory taxation under Article 110 TFEU by taxing used cars that are imported from other Member States more heavily than used cars purchased on the Portuguese market. In this respect, the CJEU already ruled in June 2016 that a previous version of this Portuguese tax was contrary to EU law (C-200/15).

The infringement procedure was initiated by the Commission through a letter of formal notice in January 2019, follo