intimate Brussels to Belgium, France and Holland to abolish the exemption from the deposit of the social taxes granted to the ports



The EU commission has intimato to Holland to abolish the exemption from the deposit of the social taxes granted to six national ports and to align the fiscal regime for the Dutch portualità to the European norms on the aids of State. The same demand for conformity has been revolt to Belgium and France.

The demand to Holland follows the exhortation turned to Amsterdam in May 2013 to abolish the dispositions that exempted some public societies, included those harbour ones, from the deposit of the taxes on the societies, exemptions that - according to Brussels - could confer to these societies an undue advantage regarding the competitors. In July the 2014 EU commission has started a specific investigation ( on 9 July 2014) and on June 4, 2015 Holland has introduced a law that returns public the societies beginning from subject to the social taxes on January 1°, 2016. However the normative new has maintained in vigor the tax exemption for the six national ports of public property, that is Amsterdam, Den Helder, Groningen, Moerdijk, Rotterdam and Zeeland Seaports. Now the EU commission has asked that such exemption is abolished and has given to Holland two months of time in order to do so as that beginning from on January 1°, 2017 the Dutch ports are subject to the same fiscal norms applied to the other public societies.

Always in July the 2014 Commission had expressed the same reliefs on the regime of taxation of the ports in vigor in Belgium and France, as in the first nation a series of ports, between which Antwerp, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, Liège, Namur, Ostenda and Zeebrugge, and the navigation channels in the Province of Hainaut and Flanders are not subordinates to the fiscal regime on the yield of the societies and are subject to another fiscal regime that generally guarantees an inferior level of taxation for the ports regarding that for the other societies. In France the majority of the ports, and in particular the great marine ports of Bordeaux, Dunkerque, La Rochelle, the Havre, Marseilles, Nantes-Saint Nazaire and Rouen let alone the ports of the departments overseas of Guadalupa, Guyana, Martinica and Réunion, the fluvial port of Paris and the ports managed from the Chambers of Industry and Commerce completely are exempted pouring social taxes. The EU commission therefore has asked to both the nations to adapt to their legislation to that of the EU, assigning also in these cases two months of time so that the necessary measures are assumed.

"The ports - it has emphasized Margrethe Vestager, European commissioner to the Competition - are infrastructures key for the economic increase and the regional development. Soon - it has announced - I will introduce a proposal in order to relatively facilitate the investments that can create job, excluding them from the controls to the European norms on the aids of State". However Margrethe Vestager has specified that if the harbour societies generate profits from economic activities, as it happens in Belgium, France and Holland, "these would have to be subject to the ordinary national fiscal legislation, in order to avoid distortions of the competition".

The Harbour Authority of Rotterdam has manifested all own disappointment for the decision of the EU commission and has preannounced a possible resource against the deliberation. The Dutch authority has evidenced that "currently the ports of the near nations benefit of all the types of support by the their respective governments, what which the port of Rotterdam must do without. And it is improbable - it has found the Harbour Authority - than in the next few years this situation changes. In case the Harbour Authority had to become subject to the taxation on the societies, this would place ulterior pressure on the competitive position of Rotterdam. If the Port of Rotterdam Authority does not oppose to the payment of the tax on the societies as such, it considers however that in Europe in the harbour field conditions of real parity would have to sussistere".