32Unequal treatment permitted under Article 73d(1)(a) of the EC Treaty must therefore be distinguished from arbitrary discrimination or disguised restrictions prohibited under Article 73d(3) of the EC Treaty. According to the case-law, for national tax legislation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, which distinguishes between foundations with unlimited tax liability and those with limited liability, to be regarded as compatible with the Treaty provisions on the free movement of capital, the difference in treatment must concern situations which are not objectively comparable or be justified by overriding reasons in the general interest, such as the need to safeguard the coherence of the tax system or effective fiscal supervision (see, to that effect, Case C-35/98 Verkooijen [2000] ECR I-4071, paragraph 43, and Manninen, paragraph 29). In order to be justified, moreover, the difference in treatment between charitable foundations with unlimited tax liability in Germany and foundations of the same kind established in other Member States must not go beyond what is necessary in order to attain the objective of the legislation in question.
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