Charging station and investment allowance
August 2022 – If your company installs a charging station at the home of its manager, it benefits from an investment deduction in return. But what if the company is located at the same address?
Investment allowance
The investment allowance is a deduction that the company receives in addition to the depreciation on the investment. The standard rate of the investment allowance is 8%, but until the end of 2022, this rate is increased to 25% for investments made until 31 December 2022. The increased investment allowance is one of the support measures decided in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.
An investment allowance is only possible for self-employed entrepreneurs (and liberal professionals) and SMEs. Large companies generally do not benefit from any investment allowance, except for some specific investments. The installation of charging stations for electric vehicles is one of the investments eligible for the general rate of the investment allowance.
However, an important condition for benefiting from the investment allowance is that the use of the investment property is not transferred to third parties. This measure was taken in order to prevent an SME from acquiring an asset with investment allowance and then transferring the use of the asset to a large company that cannot itself benefit from any investment allowance.
Charging station in the company
In response to a parliamentary question, the Minister of Finance clarified that when charging stations are installed in a company to enable employees to charge their company car or their own car, this should not be considered as a transfer of the right to use the investment. An investment deduction is therefore still possible.
Similarly, if the charging stations are used to allow visitors or customers to charge their cars, this does not prevent the investment deduction.
However, at the time, the Minister was only referring to charging stations installed in or on a business building.
According to the minister, an investment deduction is not possible for charging stations installed at the home of the employee or company director.
The company director lives in his company
There is one hypothesis that was not addressed in the ministerial reply, namely that the company's head office is established at the home of the company director. Let us now imagine that the home where the company director lives is also the head office of the company that has the charging point installed. The minister will state his views on this issue in a new parliamentary question.
Three hypotheses are put to him in this case:
- the company has a charging point installed in the private home of its director, where the company's real and sole place of business is also located;
- the company has a charging station installed at the home of the company director, more precisely on the outside of the director's property. The company director lives there and the building also houses the company's offices. He also employs staff who can also use the charging point;
- a management company has a charging point installed in the private home of its manager, where the management company also has an office.
The Minister considers that in these three cases the right of use is transferred to a taxpayer who does not meet the conditions imposed by Article 75, 3° of the Income Tax Code 1992. The charging station is not eligible for the investment deduction in any of these three cases.
The fact that the company's employees can also charge the electric cars they use for work at the charging stations does not change this.
