ROME: Etrion Corporation, a solar independent power producer, announces that Italian Constitutional Court published a ruling that declared the so-called “Robin Hood” tax unconstitutional and eliminated it from February 2015. The removal of the Robin Hood tax reduces the ordinary income tax rate applicable to most energy companies in Italy from 34% to 27.5%.
Marco A. Northland, Etrion’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “The reduction of the Italian corporate income tax rate applicable to our solar parks is a significant benefit for us. This change is expected to increase cash distributions from our 60 MW portfolio in Italy by almost US$1 million per year, offsetting the effect of the recent reduction in the Italian feed-in-tariff.”
The Robin Hood tax was a surtax introduced in 2008 that increased the overall corporate income tax rate applicable to large Italian energy companies from 27.5% to 38%. In 2011, the Robin Hood tax was expanded to include renewable energy companies. In 2013, the Italian government lowered the revenue threshold for the application of the surtax. In 2014, the government reduced the surtax, thereby reducing the overall income tax rate from 38% to 34%. Operators contested the Robin Hood tax as unconstitutional due to the higher overall tax rate being applied to energy companies compared to the ordinary tax rate for Italian companies in general.
