groundbreaking Investigation of the EU commission on the tax exemptions granted to the ports in France and Belgium



the EU commission has started an investigation deepened on the exemptions from the social taxes granted by the norms in France and Belgium to the agencies and societies that manage the ports, in order to assess if such exemptions are online with the norms EU in matter of aids of State and if they offer to the companies an advantage regarding their competitors of other Member States. The activation of the investigation follows the invitation turned last January from Brussels to France and Belgium to adapt the respective norms on the taxes to the ports to the communitarian legislation and to remove the tax exemption for the harbour ports of call(of 22 January 2016), exhortation to which France and Belgium they have not given followed not accepting to align their fiscal legislation.

the Commission has remembered that in France the majority of the ports, between which the eleven "great marine ports" (Bordeaux, Dunkerque, La Rochelle, the Havre, Marseilles, Nantes-Saint-Nazaire, Rouen let alone Guadalupa, Guyana, Martinica and Réunion), the Port independent de Paris and the ports managed from the Industry and Chambers of Commerce completely they are exempted by the tax on the societies and this - it has found the Commission - translate in a generally inferior level of taxation for the business activities of the French ports respect to other companies that operate in France.

Moreover in Belgium a sure number of marine and fluvial ports, included the ports of Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Charleroi, Gand, Liège, Namur and Ostenda, and the ports long the channels of the provinces of Hainaut and Flanders, are not subject to general the fiscal regime on the societies and are taxed under another regime based on which the share applied to the business activities of the ports Belgian turns out generally inferior regarding that of the other companies that operate in Belgium.

"the ports - it has emphasized Margrethe Vestager, European commissioner to the Competition - carry out a crucial role for the European economy. The norms on the competition in vigor in the EU take in consideration and allow with the Member States to support the construction or the modernization of harbour infrastructures through aids to the investments. However it cannot be admitted that the tax exemptions forge the competition conferring an undue advantage to some European ports to the detriment of others".