Le traitement comptable et fiscal des aides publiques octroyées aux entreprises situées en région wallonne: essai de classification

Abstract

Executive summary Context – In the current context of international competition and weak investment growth, support policies to companies by the public sector seem to be crucial and decisive instruments. In Belgium, different aid measures and incentives are implemented to support and to stimulate the different economic actors in order to innovate, to invest and to undertake. The domestic laws concerning State Aids are subject to the European law. Indeed, in order to avoid distortion of the competition, State aids are prohibited. Actually, they can only be implemented if they are approved by the European Commission and if they are justified by economic reasons. The different legislations in Belgium are constantly changing. In fact, since the beginning, they have been submitted to the different institutional reforms and transfers of competences. As a result, the landscape of the public aids, composed by a multitude of aid systems derived from a large range of legislative texts, suffers from a lack of coherence and readability. Moreover, from this diversity of forms and granting authorities results a diversity of accounting and tax treatments. Furthermore, different simplification reforms of aids systems have recently been launched in order to provide more efficiency. Purpose – The main goal of this present dissertation is to understand and to explain the accounting rules and the taxation practices applied to the public aids granted to the companies placed in the Walloon Region. Methodology – In order to achieve this goal, we started by classifying the large panel of public aids in different categories. Then, we analysed the accounting and the tax treatment for each category with the help of the several legislations in force. Moreover, concerning the recent simplification reforms, we met different actors working on these reforms in order to gain a better understanding of the situation. Findings –Eight categories emerged from our classification. The different accounting and tax treatments are actually diverging depending on the different characteristics of the category. Value – The results of this study may turn out to be interesting for companies that receive aids from the public authorities but also for anyone who would like to gain a better understanding of this complex subject.