The Pendulum Swings

Writing elsewhere on Oy AA Case C-231/05 — where the ECJ rather surprisingly held that the Finnish equivalent of group relief could be confined to entirely domestic situations — I commented that the ECJ seemed to have found a new maturity in tax cases and seemed no longer to be prepared to strike down with reckless abandon any particular tax rule of which a taxpayer complained. But now an Advocate-General from — of all places — the United Kingdom seems determined to restore the status quo which will be good news for litigiously-minded taxpayers and their advisers.