2004/76/EC: Commission Decision of 13 May 2003 on the aid scheme implemented by France for headquarters and logistics centres (notified under document number C(2003) 1483) (Text with EEA relevance)

• Articles: 4

Article 1

The exclusion of subcontracting expenditure from the calculation of the tax base and the application limited to the first bracket of the scale of the annual flat-rate tax implemented by France within the framework of the circular of 21 January 1997 of the Directorate-General of Taxes concerning the headquarters and logistics centres scheme constitute State aid which is illegal and incompatible with the common market.

Article 2

France is required to abolish, with effect from the tax period following that under way on the date of notification of this Decision, the following aid elements governed by the circular referred to in Article 1:

(a) the arrangements for applying the cost-plus method as regards the exclusion of certain subcontracting expenditure from the basis for calculating taxable profit;

(b) the arrangements for partial exemption from the IFA.

Article 3

France shall inform the Commission, within two months of notification of this Decision, of the measures taken to comply with it.

Article 4

This Decision is addressed to the French Republic.

Done at Brussels, 13 May 2003.

For the Commission

Mario Monti

Member of the Commission

(1) OJ C 302, 27.10.2001, p. 2.

(2) OJ C 2, 6.1.1998, p. 1.

(3) OJ C 384, 10.12.1998, p. 3.

(4) See footnote 1.

(5) Official Tax Bulletin 13 G-1-97 No 21 of 30 January 1997.

(6) Official Tax Bulletin 4 C-5-02 No 175 of 11 October 2002.

(7) "Transfer Pricing Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises and Tax Administrations", OECD, 1995.

(8) If, for example, a company paid the IFA on 15 March 2003, it may set this sum against one of the part payments or the balance due in either 2003, 2004 or 2005. After that date, the tax becomes definitively due to the Treasury.

(9) See footnote 1.

(10) See footnote 1.

(11) See paragraph 13 of the circular.

(12) See paragraph 56 of the circular.

(13) OJ L 10, 13.1.2001, p. 30.

(14) Case 730/79 Philip Morris Holland BV v Commission [1980] ECR 2671.

(15) See Commission Decision 96/369/EC of 13 March 1996 concerning fiscal aid given to German airlines in the form of a depreciation facility (OJ L 146, 20.6.1996, p. 42).

(16) OJ L 83, 27.3.1999, p. 1.

(17) Case C-265/85 Van den Bergh en Jurgens BV v Commission [1987] ECR 1155, paragraph 44.

(18) Case 223/85 RSV v Commission [1987] ECR 4617.

(19) See answer to Written Question No 1735/90 (OJ C 63, 11.3.1991, p. 37).