RIVISTA DI DIRITTO TRIBUTARIO INTERNAZIONALE - Rdti.it

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Se:::.ione J - Dottrina
reducing tax and social security contributions bome by Community
shipping companies in order to contain the outflow towards flags of convenience
and to promote employment in the sector.
The use of tax breaks - tonnage tax is expressly provided for -, of direct
aid and of both instruments together it is, thus, allowed. The new
ceiling of state aid to the sector consists in reducing to zero tax on wages,
sodal charges for seafarers and cOI-porate incarne tax.
While norrnally the above fiscal alleviation schemes would need, in
order to be declared "admissible", to be linked with a Community
flag/register, the 1997 document relaxes this prescription, introducing the
more flexible condition that the fleet must contribute 'substantially' to the
economy and to the employment within the Union. In other words, in
order to qualify for the benefits il is sufficient that the strategic and commerciaI
management of all ships concemed is effectively carried out from
within a European member state (4).
The same document stresses, moreover, that such measures do not
come under "harrnful tax competition" between member states (5). The
cost savings that can be obtained by shipping companies registering their
ship in a third country are far greater than those obtainable by moving
from one Community register to another, a phenomenon, besides, of negligible
proportions (6).
The Commission acknowledges, therefore, that tax competition in the
maritime sector is mainly an issue between mernber states on one side
and non-EU countries on the other (7). The latter, lacking an actual base
(4) See point 3.1 of EU Commission (1997).
(5) It is common knowledge that on the overall judgement on the effects of tax
competition, govemments, intemational organisations and experts take, often, different
stands. Critics stress hov.' a generaI dO\vnward trend in tax rates causes distortions
(in tenns of loss of efficiency) in the choices of the single nationa1 com muniti es over
the distribution of resources between private and public consumption. Conversely,
those in favour, believe that the boost given by lax competitiml leads to a "streamlining"
of the public sector. In major intemational organisations (OECD, EU) a distinction
is made between "physiological" and "harrnful" lax competition.
(6) According to the Commission, the steady decline of fleets in Community registries
accompanied by a substantial stability of the share of the intemational fleet
'controlled' by Community operators, attests to the fact that the effective level of taxation
in the different member states does not have a significant influence on shipovmers'
decisions and that, in any case, there is a generai convergence in member states'
approach to state aid.
(7) On the question of lax competition between open registries and traditionaIly
maritime countries, see Bergantino-O'Sullivan (1999).
RIVISTA DI DIRfITO TRIBLTARIO INTERNAZIONALE 3/2001