Brussels, 19/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has gone on to a new stage in its investigation concerning several special tax regimes in force in twelve Member States, regimes that it suspects are incompatible with European State aid rules. It has just taken a decision concerning the special tax regime for international headquarters and logistic centres in France, that it finds to be in breach of the rules. The aim of the regime is to promote the establishment of subsidiaries or affiliates of multinational groups in France, by providing tax relief. The regime thus provides advantages to the headquarters and logistic centres or multinational groups to which they belong by reducing their normal tax burden, or by allowing them to remove significant items of expenditure (subcontracting costs) from the tax base or by partially excluding the headquarters and logistic centres from the application of the alternative tax (IFA) - a derogation from the French tax code. The Commission has analysed the regime and considers it "results in selective lower effective taxation, which is not allowed by State aid rules". The scheme only applies to French subsidiaries or permanent establishments of foreign companies operating within a multinational group of companies, which confers a considerable advantage upon these companies. Above all, in the case of intra-group international activities such as research and development, which are subject to fierce competition and are potentially covered by the scheme, the distortion created by the tax advantage is very substantial. Nonetheless, given that, at the time when the scheme was introduced, the French authorities and the beneficiaries could legitimately think that it was not State aid, the Commission calls for the regime to be abolished but does not demand reimbursement of the tax advantages obtained.