It is a defeat for telecom operators, but it reveals the opening of a new front in their long battle against a production tax, which they consider unfair and unsuitable. In a judgment rendered on April 23, the first in this case, the administrative court of Poitiers (Vienna) rejected Bouygues Telecom’s request to be relieved of contributions to the flat-rate tax on network companies (IFER) subject to the mobile telephone antennas that it operates in this department. For the targeted period, from 2020 to 2022, this represented an amount of just over one million euros.
“Bercy services have always been confident about the legality of this tax. The judgment is therefore welcomed without surprise,” puts the State Secretariat responsible for digital into perspective. The operators are, however, determined to continue their fight. The Bouygues group subsidiary, which is not commenting on the court’s decision, is considering appealing. Other appeals are possible, in France or at European level.
“Is it logical to impose such a level of taxation on telecoms at a time when the European Commission is highlighting the importance of very high-speed networks for the future of the Union? “, asks Romain Bonenfant, the director general of the French Telecoms Federation (FFT), the organization which represents the major French operators, with the exception of Free (owned by Xavier Niel, individual shareholder of World).
“The equity of redistribution”
The IFER, which applies to network companies (energy, railway and telecoms), was created in 2010 with the aim of compensating part of the loss of tax resources for local authorities, caused by the replacement of the professional tax by the territorial economic contribution (CET). The operators do not dispute this principle, but emphasize that the amounts paid exceed the targeted compensatory objective.
At the time the tax was created, annual revenue was estimated at 140 million euros. However, according to the latest FFT count, telecoms paid 299 million euros in mobile IFER (or radio IFER) in 2022 and more than 2.5 billion since 2010. And the bill will rise further: being applied to each antenna and on each technology (2G, 3G, 4G and 5G), the more operators install new mobile telephone relays, the more IFER they pay. In a 2021 report, the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) estimated the amount of the mobile IFER for 2025 at more than 400 million euros.
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