In May 2015, Belgium notified to the Commission plans to introduce a specific income tax regime for diamond traders to address specific difficulties in the application of the general income tax regime to the sector.

A memorandum by the Directorate-General for Taxation dated 9 April 2002, sent to the Commission by the French authorities, stated that ‘the grantor rights in respect of the RAG represent an unowed debt which was unjustifiably exempted from tax by being incorporated into the capital’ and that ‘before this reserve was incorporated into the capital, it should have been transferred from the enterprise's liabilities, where it was incorrectly posted, to a net assets account, thereby resulting in a positive variation in net worth that was taxable under Article 38(2)’ of the General Tax Code.

The tax authorities acknowledge that this transaction was illegal, as can be seen from the memorandum dated 9 April 2002 addressed by the Directorate-General for Taxation to the Commission and quoted in recital 35.

The Commission considers, however, that the advantage gained lies in the delayed payment of tax and corresponds to the balance of the discounted values of the taxes paid throughout the depreciation period taking into account the interest rates applied.

In these circumstances, the Commission considers that the members of an EIG benefit from advantages in the form of tax savings (removal of the depreciation ceiling and increase in the depreciation coefficient) and, in the event of early transfer of title in the asset carried out under certain conditions, of a tax exemption, both of which represent a cost to the budget of the French State.

(56) The argument put forward in certain comments by third parties, to the effect that it would be wrong to regard the 45 % tax credit as involving a loss of tax revenue compared to the normal amount (determined by the Commission) of the tax due, is a fallacious one. It has to be pointed out that the normal level of tax derives from the tax system in question and not from any Commission decision allegedly pursuing a hidden agenda of tax harmonisation.