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Form 200. Corporate Income Tax Declaration 2019

11.3.1.1 Scope of application

They can benefit from this special regime:

  1. The entities registered in any of the shipping company registries referred to in RDLeg. 2/2011, of September 5, which approves the Consolidated Text of the Law on State Ports and the Merchant Navy whose activity includes the operation of own or leased vessels.

    Resident natural persons and legal entities domiciled in Spain or countries of the European Union will be entitled to obtain the registration and flagging of civil ships, provided that, in the latter case, they designate a representative in Spain.

  2. The entities that carry out, in their entirety, the technical and crew management of ships included in the special regime. For these purposes, technical and crew management is understood as the assumption of full responsibility for the nautical operation of the ship, as well as all duties and responsibilities imposed by the International Management Code for the Safety of the Operation of Ships and the pollution prevention adopted by the International Maritime Organization through Resolution A741.

Vessels whose operation makes the application of the regime possible must meet the following requirements:

  1. Be managed strategically and commercially from Spain or from the rest of the European Union. For these purposes, strategic and commercial management is understood as the assumption by the owner of the vessel or the lessee of the control and risk of the activity of maritime navigation or work at sea.

  2. Be suitable for maritime navigation and be intended exclusively for activities involving the transport of goods, passengers, rescue and other services necessarily provided at sea, without prejudice to what is indicated in letter c) below.

  3. In the case of vessels intended for towing activity, it will be necessary that less than 50% of the income for the tax period comes from activities carried out in ports and from the provision of help to a self-propelled vessel to reach port. In the case of vessels with dredging activity, it will be necessary for more than 50% of the income of the tax period to come from the activity of transporting and depositing extracted materials on the seabed, this regime covering only this part of their activity.

Regarding the entities that transfer the use of these vessels, this requirement will be deemed met when they justify that the income of the entity that carries out the towing or dredging activity meets those percentages in each of the tax periods in which this regime is applicable. to those entities.

Vessels intended for towing and dredging activities must be registered in Spain or in another member state of the European Union or the European Economic Area.

When the regime is applicable to taxpayers with vessels not registered in Spain or in another Member State of the European Union or the European Economic Area, the increase in the percentage of the net tonnage of said vessels with respect to the total fleet of the entity covered by the regime special, whatever its cause, will not prevent the application of said regime on condition that the average percentage of the net tonnage of ships registered in Spain or in another Member State of the European Union with respect to the total net tonnage referring to the year preceding the moment in which said increase occurs, is maintained during the period of the subsequent three years.

This condition will not apply when the percentage of the net tonnage of vessels registered in Spain or in another Member State of the European Union is at least 60 percent.

This regime cannot be applied when all the vessels are not registered in Spain or in another Member State of the European Union. Vessels intended, directly or indirectly, for fishing or sporting activities, nor recreational vessels, may not benefit from this regime.

This regime will not apply during tax periods in which the following circumstances occur simultaneously:

  1. That the entity has the status of a medium or large company in accordance with the provisions of Recommendation 2003/361/EC of the European Commission.

  2. That they receive State aid for restructuring granted under the provisions of Communication 2004/C244/02 of the European Commission.

  3. That the European Commission had not taken into account the tax benefits derived from the application of this regime when it made the decision on restructuring aid.

For administrative authorizations granted between April 30, 2007 and June 29, 2011, the tax regime of shipping entities based on tonnage to economic interest groups will not apply to the extent that it constitutes incompatible State aid in the terms provided for in the Decision of the European Commission of June 17, 2013, relating to the tax regime applicable to certain financial leasing agreements, as established in the thirtieth transitional provision of the LIS .