operators don’t calm down strain towards tax on community firms | EUROtoday

It is a defeat for telecom operators, but it surely reveals the opening of a brand new entrance of their lengthy battle towards a manufacturing tax, which they think about unfair and unsuitable. In a judgment rendered on April 23, the primary on this case, the executive courtroom of Poitiers (Vienna) rejected Bouygues Telecom's request to be relieved of contributions to the flat-rate tax on community firms (IFER) topic to cellular phone antennas that it operates on this division. For the focused interval, from 2020 to 2022, this represented an quantity of simply over a million euros.

“Bercy services have always been confident about the legality of this tax. The judgment is therefore welcomed without surprise,” places the State Secretariat accountable for digital into perspective. The operators are, nevertheless, decided to proceed their combat. The Bouygues group subsidiary, which isn’t commenting on the courtroom's resolution, is contemplating interesting. Other appeals are attainable, in France or at European degree.

“Is it logical to impose such a level of taxation on telecoms at a time when the European Commission is highlighting the importance of very high-speed networks for the future of the Union? “, asks Romain Bonenfant, the director general of the French Telecoms Federation (FFT), the organization which represents the major French operators, with the exception of Free (owned by Xavier Niel, individual shareholder of World).

“The equity of redistribution”

The IFER, which applies to network companies (energy, railway and telecoms), was created in 2010 with the aim of compensating part of the loss of tax resources for local authorities, caused by the replacement of the professional tax by the territorial economic contribution (CET). The operators do not dispute this principle, but emphasize that the amounts paid exceed the targeted compensatory objective.

At the time the tax was created, annual income was estimated at 140 million euros. However, in accordance with the newest FFT rely, telecoms paid 299 million euros in cellular IFER (or radio IFER) in 2022 and greater than 2.5 billion since 2010. And the invoice will rise additional: being utilized on every antenna and on every know-how (2G, 3G, 4G and 5G), the extra operators set up new cellular phone relays, the extra IFER they pay. In a 2021 report, the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) estimated the quantity of the cellular IFER for 2025 at greater than 400 million euros.

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