Due to the current state of crisis, the Government Council adopted the Grand-Ducal Regulation of 25 March 2020, which was published the same day and entered into force on 26 March 2020. Following this Grand-Ducal Regulation, the deadlines set for bringing proceedings before the Luxembourg judicial, administrative, military and constitutional courts are temporarily suspended. The regulation foresees only a few exceptions which mainly concern deprivation of liberty for which prompt decisions must be taken.
With regards to tax cases, the suspension of deadlines applies both to indirect tax and tax collection cases dealt with by the judicial courts as well as to direct tax cases dealt with by the administrative courts. Before the judicial courts, all pre-trial deadlines (délais de mise en état) and deadlines for filing an appeal against first instance decisions are suspended. Before the administrative courts, the deadlines for filing an appeal, for exchanging pleas and for appealing against a first instance decision are suspended. It should however be noted that the suspension applies only to the deadlines before the judicial or administrative courts, so that the suspension does not apply to the deadline for pre-litigation claims (i.e. in front of the tax authorities or their director) in direct tax and indirect tax matters. Since the pre-litigation claims are a mandatory condition in order to be able to file a claim before the courts, particular care must be taken to avoid missing the unsuspended pre-litigation deadlines.
The suspension provided for by this regulation remains applicable either (i) until the end of the state of crisis (which has been extended by the law of 24 March 2020 until 18 June 2020), or (ii) until its repeal by another Grand-Ducal regulation during the state of crisis. Once the suspension ends, the deadlines will resume at the point where they were at the time the suspension came into effect.
