Can the Uncertainty Caused by the Questioning of Tax Measures in Relation to Cooperatives by the ECJ Be Solved?

Resumen

Different Member States provide for special tax treatment of cooperatives, which insome of them, are constitutionally protected. In some cases, a lower tax burden isgranted to cooperatives due to their exceptional contribution to the community. Someof the tax measures applying to cooperatives are technical adjustments, while othersare pure tax benefits, the latter seeking the promotion of the cooperative model.Ascertaining in which cases a given legal measure can be considered to be a technicaladjustment and can be considered to be fair or when the given measure can beregarded as a State aid is a difficult task, as the ECJ jurisprudence has very oftenvaried its point of view. Throughout this paper, we are going to follow the ECJjurisprudence on State aid for cooperatives in order to check out if having an Act onSocial Economy as the Spanish one may help Social Economy entities in this regard.