The Ability to Pay in the European Market: An Impossible Sudoku for the ECJ

Abstract:
The article analyses the meaning of the ability-to-pay principle in the European market and its development in the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Through the separate examination of the subjective and objective ability to pay, the work explores the possibility of applying some of the findings of the ECJ in decisions concerning individual taxpayers to analogous cases involving companies and businesses in general. In both situations, the actual protection of the ability to pay in cross-border scenarios is considered in order to assess the ability of the Court’s negative integration powers to make up for the lack of harmonization.