• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • TikTok
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
CDE Almería – Centro de Documentación Europea – Universidad de Almería

CDE Almería - Centro de Documentación Europea - Universidad de Almería

Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería

  • HOME
  • WHAT´S ON
    • EU BULLETINS
    • EU NEWS
    • Activities
    • EU Calls and Awards
    • Radio Program «Europe with You»
  • DOCUMENTATION
    • Bibliographic Collection
      • Almería EDC Digital Collection
      • UNIVERSITY OF ALMERIA LIBRARY
    • Documentation by topic
    • EU Media Collection
      • Web Space
      • MEDIATHEQUE REPOSITORY
  • Europe on the net
    • Institutions
    • EU Representation in Spain
    • European information network of Andalusia
    • EU official journal
  • ABOUT US
    • Presentation
    • People
    • Contact
  • Spanish
  • English

State aid: Commission open investigations into individual “excess profit” tax rulings granted by Belgium to 39 multinational companies

Inicio » EU News » State aid: Commission open investigations into individual “excess profit” tax rulings granted by Belgium to 39 multinational companies

19 de September de 2019

The European Commission has opened in-depth investigations to assess whether tax rulings on “excessive profits” handed down by Belgium to 39 multinational companies gave these companies an unfair advantage over their competitors, in breach of EU state aid rules.

The decisions to open this investigation follow the annulment by the General Court in February 2019 of the Commission’s decision of January 2016, which concluded that the same tax judgments were part of a Belgian aid scheme that was illegal under EU state aid rules. The Court did not rule on whether or not the ‘excess profits’ tax exemptions constituted unlawful state aid, but considered that the Commission had not demonstrated the existence of a scheme. This means that, according to the General Court, the compatibility of tax judgments with EU state aid rules must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, which is why the Commission has now opened separate and in-depth investigations into individual tax judgments. At the same time, the Commission has appealed the judgment of the General Court to the European Court of Justice for clarification of the existence of an aid scheme.

The in-depth investigations relate to individual tax judgements on “excess profits” handed down by Belgium between 2005 and 2014 in favour of 39 Belgian companies belonging to multinational groups. Most of these multinational groups are based in Europe.

Belgian law

Belgian corporate tax rules require companies, as a starting point, to be taxed on the basis of profits actually recorded from activities in Belgium. However, the Belgian judgments on ‘excess profits’, based on the Belgian income tax code (Article 185(2)(b) of the ‘Code des Impôts sur les Revenus/Wetboek Inkomstenbelastingen’), allowed multinational entities in Belgium to reduce their corporate tax liability through the so-called ‘excess profits’ allegedly deriving from the advantage of being part of a multinational group. These advantages included, for example, synergies, economies of scale, reputation, networks of customers and suppliers or access to new markets. In practice, judgements often result in more than 50 per cent and, in some cases, up to 90 per cent of the accounting profits of such firms being tax-exempt.

The Commission’s preliminary view is that, by deducting the “excess profits” from the beneficiaries’ tax base, the tax provisions under investigation selectively misapplied the Belgian income tax code. In particular, the Commission fears that the judgments approved unilateral downward adjustments to the tax base of the beneficiaries, even if the legal conditions were not met. Furthermore, the Commission fears that the Belgian practice of issuing ‘excessive profits’ judgments in favour of certain companies may have discriminated against other Belgian companies, which did not receive, or could not receive, such a judgement.

As a result, the tax decisions may have given a selective advantage to the 39 multinational companies, allowing them to pay substantially less tax.

More information

Access the full news

Publicaciones relacionadas:

EU Budget for 2021-2027: provisional agreement reached on the financial programme to support justice area MEPs agree on future regional and cohesion funding Antitrust: Commitments by Mastercard and Visa to cut inter-regional interchange fees External action: more funds for human rights, development and climate change persona sentada sobre una superficie de madera oscura sostiene un mapa doblado en la manoIreland to the Court of Justice for failing to effectively protect tourists

“This is a space for debate. All comments, for or against publication, that are respectful and do not contain expressions that are discriminatory, defamatory or contrary to current legislation will be published”.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Publicaciones relacionadas

EU Budget for 2021-2027: provisional agreement reached on the financial programme to support justice area MEPs agree on future regional and cohesion funding Antitrust: Commitments by Mastercard and Visa to cut inter-regional interchange fees External action: more funds for human rights, development and climate change persona sentada sobre una superficie de madera oscura sostiene un mapa doblado en la manoIreland to the Court of Justice for failing to effectively protect tourists

Footer

Logotipo en negativo del Centro de Documentación Europea de Almería
  • CDE Almería
  • Edificio Parque Científico-Tecnológico (Pita)
  • Planta: 1ª, Despacho: 2904120.
  • Ctra. Sacramento s/n. Almería (Spain)
  • Teléfono: (+34) 950 015266

HOME
NEWS
DOCUMENTATION
EUROPE ON THE NET
ABOUT US

  • LEGAL NOTICE
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • COOKIE POLICY
  • ACCESSIBILITY
  • SITEMAP

Copyright © 2023 CDE Almería · Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

<p>El Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería utiliza cookies propias y de terceros para facilitar al usuario la navegación en su página Web y el acceso a los distintos contenidos alojados en la misma. Asimismo, se utilizan cookies analíticas de terceros para medir la interacción de los usuarios con el sitio Web. Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. ajustes</p>

Politica de privacidad

El Centro de Documentación Europea de la Universidad de Almería utiliza cookies propias y de terceros para facilitar al usuario la navegación en su página Web y el acceso a los distintos contenidos alojados en la misma. Asimismo, se utilizan cookies analíticas de terceros para medir la interacción de los usuarios con el sitio Web. Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. <a href="/politica-de-cookies" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Más información</a>

Cookies estrictamente necesarias

Las cookies estrictamente necesarias tiene que activarse siempre para que podamos guardar tus preferencias de ajustes de cookies.

Básicamente la web no funcionara bien si no las activas.

Estas cookies son:

  • Comprobación de inicio de sesión.
  • Cookies de seguridad.
  • Aceptación/rechazo previo de cookies.

Si desactivas esta cookie no podremos guardar tus preferencias. Esto significa que cada vez que visites esta web tendrás que activar o desactivar las cookies de nuevo.

Cookies de terceros

Esta web utiliza Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager y Yandex Metrika para recopilar información anónima tal como el número de visitantes del sitio, o las páginas más populares.

Dejar estas cookies activas nos permite mejorar nuestra web.

¡Por favor, activa primero las cookies estrictamente necesarias para que podamos guardar tus preferencias!

Política de cookies

Pinche el siguiente enlace si desea información sobre el uso de cookies y como deshabilitarlas. Más información