On 22 October, Dr Jordi de Juan, lecturer at the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Law and director of the Bosch Aymerich Family Business Chair, spoke at a conference on the tax-related anti-abuse clause, which was organised by the Faculty of Law at the University of Valencia. 

Under the title "La codificación de la cláusula antiabuso en el Derecho de la Unión Europea: la recepción interna de la GAAR comunitaria” (The codification of the anti-abuse clause in European Union law: the internal reception of the Community GAAR), De Juan explained that the European General Anti Abuse Rule (GAAR) is no more than the codification of Community jurisprudence, sectoral directives and soft law, but that it also fully applies to situations of internal legal traffic. He drew particular attention to how, on the basis of practical cases of legal reality, the Supreme Court’s most recent case law will have to adapt to the uniform EU anti-avoidance canon and its application standard established by the European Union’s Court of Justice. The lecturer from the Faculty of Law had already extensively developed this thesis in his monograph La Directiva europea contra la elusión fiscal (The European Anti-Tax Avoidance Directive), published by Aranzadi Thomson Reuters in 2018.

The two other presentations were given by Joaquin Huelín Diéz de Velasco, Supreme Court judge, who analysed the anti-abuse clause in the Supreme Court’s case law, and Teresa Soler Roch, emeritus professor of Financial and Tax Law at the University of Alicante, who spoke about anti-abuse standards in double taxation conventions.

These conferences formed part of the research project “Globalización, multilateralismo y modulación de los derechos y garantías de los contribuyentes” (Globalisation, multilateralism and the modulation of taxpayers' rights and guarantees), co-financed by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and by the Valencian Government, in collaboration with the European Union and the Spanish Association of Tax Advisors. Jordi de Juan's contribution stems from his line of research on Community harmonisation, selective tax aid and anti-tax avoidance rules. If his results were to lead to the detection of mismatches between our domestic tax system and European Union law, it could result in an important transfer of knowledge to the public and private sector.