Portugal has lost its appeal to the European Court of Justice in the Madeira Free Trade Zone case. The Court upheld the ruling of the General Court which held that the European Commission was right in finding that Portugal unlawfully applied the reduced Income Tax (IRC) regime to companies in the Free Trade Zone for the creation of employment in what is defined as regime III. from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2014.
Portugal will therefore have to recover the money that companies benefited from applying the lower tax regime.
In its ruling issued on Thursday, the Court of Justice considered that “since none of the grounds invoked by the Portuguese Republic to support its appeal have been accepted, the appeal must be dismissed in its entirety.”
In other words, at the end of the line – there is no possible appeal against Thursday’s decision – Portugal loses.
In update
Source: Observadora
