EU launches Belgian and French tax probes

This follows speculation as to whether these tax exemptions give companies in a certain sector an unfair advantage over competitors in other Member States.

In January 2016, following its investigation into the functioning and taxation of ports in EU Member States, the Commission asked Belgium and France to bring their corporate tax law into line with EU state aid rules by abolishing their tax exemption for ports.

As Belgium and France have not agreed to align their tax laws as the Commission proposed, the Commission has now opened in-depth investigations to assess whether its initial concerns are confirmed or not.

The opening of an in-depth investigation gives an opportunity for the two Member States and interested third-parties to comment, with particular regard to port activities such as safety, surveillance and traffic control.

In Belgium, a number of sea and inland waterway ports (notably the ports of Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Charleroi, Ghent, Liège, Namur and Ostend, as well as ports along the canals in Hainaut Province and Flanders) are exempt from the general corporate income tax regime.

In France, most ports, notably the 11 “grands ports maritimes” (Bordeaux, Dunkerque, La Rochelle, Le Havre, Marseille, Nantes – Saint-Nazaire and Rouen as well as Guadeloupe, Guyane, Martinique and Réunion), the ‘Port autonome de Paris’, and ports operated by chambers of industry and commerce, are fully exempt from corporate income tax.

This self-evidently results in an overall lower level of taxation for Belgian and French ports on their commercial activities, when compared to other companies in the countries.

As both the Belgian and the French measures already existed before the establishment of the EU in 1958, the aid is regarded as “existing aid”. This means that the Commission cannot ask Belgium and France to recover aid granted in the past, nor any aid granted up until the moment that a final decision is adopted by the Commission.