Quel est l'impact du passage de la norme NEDC à la norme WLTP sur le traitement fiscal des voitures de société au Luxembourg?

Abstract

The allocation of a company car to an employee is a well-known practice in Luxembourg. The granting of such a benefit in kind is a key element of the remuneration policy of some employers because of its advantageous tax treatment. However, as concerns about climate change have grown, many states have attempted to put in place policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. When the European Union committed itself to combating climate change by signing the United Nations Framework Convention, road transport was a major source of pollution in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. Setting targets for this sector was therefore essential. In particular, the European Union has committed itself to reducing emissions from new passenger cars by 20% of 1990 levels by 2020. However, assessing the achievement of these targets is difficult and sometimes unrepresentative. Indeed, numerous studies have shown that there is a growing gap between the emissions values obtained during vehicle type approval and those observed in real-life conditions. The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has therefore been working on a new test cycle to provide more realistic results. Such a change might not seem to be of great importance. However, the CO2 emission values determined during type approval are commonly used to calculate various vehicle taxes. This change in the test cycle therefore has an impact on vehicle taxation and consequently on the tax treatment of company vehicles. The aim of this thesis is therefore to study the impact of the switch from the NEDC to the WLTP standard on the tax treatment of company cars in Luxembourg. Illustrated by various numerical examples, this work demonstrates that all the elements resulting from the rates applicable for the determination of the benefit in kind according to the flat rate method are only impacted when the vehicle changes of emission category. These elements include benefits in kind with or without participation, but also social security contributions and the income tax directly resulting from them. The deductibility of VAT also depends on the emission category. The allocation of the bonus for electric vehicles is only affected by the change of standard when the electric consumption of the vehicle exceeds the threshold of 18 kWh/100km. The effect of the change of standard on the grant for hybrid vehicles depends strongly on the vehicle model. Finally, the change from the NEDC to the WLTP standard implies a change in the road vehicle tax for all versions with exclusively internal combustion engines but does not affect the tax for the electric and hybrid versions studied.