BRUSSELS: Belgium has received approval from the European Commission (EC) to prolong its existing tax measures for maritime transport until the end of 2022. The approval was granted under EU state aid rules, which encourage shipping companies to register vessels in Europe to ensure higher social, environmental, and safety standards.
Belgium expects to include a number of changes to prevent discrimination between both individual shipping companies and different European Economic Areas (EEA).
According to the amended scheme, a company will be taxed based on its ship tonnage or the size of its shipping fleet, rather than its profits. This ensures that tonnage taxation will be applied to a shipping company’s core revenues derived from different shipping activities including cargo and passenger transport.
