Brussels, 13/10/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has concluded that the way in which UK property tax on telecommunications infrastructure is applied to BT and Kingston Communications in England and Wales does not constitute an aid under EC Treaty state aid rules. The base of the “business rates” tax is determined for each telecommunications operator by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), an executive agency of the UK Government. The VOA applies various valuation methods to assess the rental value of telecommunications networks. The VOA applies a certain asset valuation method to BT and Kingston while it applies other methods to their competitors. The Commission opened a formal investigation in January 2005 to determine whether the application of different valuation methods resulted in a disproportionate tax burden for some companies competing in the market for electronic communications services and whether it favoured BT and Kingston (see EUR OPE 8871). The investigation concluded that the application of a special valuation method to BT and Kingston was justified by the specific nature of their networks, which are essentially local access networks, and had not resulted in an undervaluation of their networks. (ab)