Tax break for hydrogen and electric trucks
January 2022 – At the time of writing, the law organising the fiscal and social greening of mobility had just been approved by Parliament. The law pays particular attention to electric company cars, but also contains some very interesting provisions for truck owners.
Investment deduction
The investment deduction allows you to deduct a certain percentage of the investment you have made from your taxable profit, in addition to the depreciation on that investment. If you buy something for 100 euros, you get an 8% investment allowance: you can write off the 100 euros and you can also deduct 8 euros from your taxable income in the year of the investment.
The rate of the investment allowance is in principle 8%, but there are all sorts of derogatory rates. In addition, as a result of the coronavirus crisis, the government has increased the deduction rate to 25% for self-employed entrepreneurs and SMEs for all fixed assets acquired or built up in the period between 12 March 2020 and 31 December 2022 inclusive.
For trucks
The new law now also provides for a special increased investment allowance for "carbon-free trucks and charging infrastructure for blue, green or turquoise hydrogen and electric charging infrastructure". This increased deduction is aimed not only at independent entrepreneurs and SMEs, but also at large companies.
Investments already benefit from an increased investment deduction of 13.5% (instead of 8%) and this deduction is further increased by :
21.5 percentage points, for fixed assets acquired or established in 2022 or 2023 ;
16 percentage points, for assets acquired or established in 2024;
10.5 percentage points, for fixed assets acquired or constituted in 2025;
5 percentage points, for assets acquired or established in 2026.
In other words, the deduction percentages for investments in zero-carbon trucks and charging infrastructure are as follows:
2022 : 35.0 % ;
2023 : 35.0 % ;
2024 : 29.5% ;
2025 : 24.0% ;
2026: 18.5%; and
2027 : 13.5%.
To avoid the measure being classified as illegal state aid by the European Commission, the investment allowance is limited to the maximum aid intensity of 15 million euros. With a corporate tax rate of 25%, this amounts to a maximum investment allowance of 60 million euros.
The investment allowance is not allowed if the taxpayer :
has outstanding debts to the NSSO;
is a company in difficulty;
has received a recovery order for state aid; or
has already received regional aid for this asset.
The definition of "lorry" corresponds to the definition applied for the purposes of collecting road tax: any lorry, road tractor or semi-trailer, of category N1 (up to 3.5 tonnes), N2 (3.5 up to 12 tonnes) or N3 (over 12 tonnes), as defined in the Technical Regulations for Vehicles, and which is identified at registration by the code "CV = lorry" or "TR = tractor".
The other side of the coin
To further encourage the switch to green trucks and perhaps also to finance the increased investment allowance, the current exemption from special excise duty for commercial diesel will be subject to a (limited) reduction over the same period. The exemption (in the form of a refund) will, from 1 January 2023, be gradually reduced to 202.0665 per 1.000 litres from 1 January 2026.
