EFTA SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY DECISION

No 416/10/COL

of 3 November 2010

on the taxation of investment undertakings under the Liechtenstein Tax Act

(Liechtenstein)

THE EFTA SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY (‘楾HE AUTHORITY‘�,

HAVING REGARD to the Agreement on the European Economic Area (‘the EEA Agreement‘�, in particular to Articles 61 to 63 and Protocol 26,

HAVING REGARD to the Agreement between the EFTA States on the Establishment of a Surveillance Authority and a Court of Justice (‘the Surveillance and Court Agreement‘�, in particular to Article 24,

HAVING REGARD to Protocol 3 to the Surveillance and Court Agreement (‘Protocol 3‘�, in particular to Article 1(2) of Part I and Articles 4(4), 6, 7(5) and 14 of Part II,

HAVING REGARD to the consolidated version of the Authority‘檚 Decision No 195/04/COL of 14 July 2004 on the implementing provisions referred to under Article 27 of Part II of Protocol 3 (‘the Implementing Provisions Decision‘� (1),

HAVING called on interested parties to submit their comments pursuant to those provisions and having regard to their comments,

Whereas:

I. FACTS

1. PROCEDURE

By letter dated 14 March 2007, the Authority sent a request for information to the Liechtenstein authorities, inquiring about various tax derogations for certain types of company apparently available under the Liechtenstein Tax Act. After various exchanges of correspondence, by letter dated 18 March 2009 the Authority informed the Liechtenstein authorities that it had decided to initiate the procedure laid down in Article 1(2) of Part I of Protocol 3 in respect of the taxation of investment undertakings. The Authority‘檚 Decision No 149/09/COL to initiate the formal investigation procedure was published in the Official Journal of the European Union and the EEA Supplement to it, calling upon interested parties to submit comments (2). The Authority received comments from interested parties. By letter dated 26 January 2010 the Authority forwarded these to the Liechtenstein authorities, which were given the opportunity to respond. This was done by letter dated 17 March 2010.

2. DESCRIPTION OF THE MEASURE INVESTIGATED

2.1. Title

The investigation concerned the treatment of investment undertakings under the Liechtenstein Tax Act (Gesetz 眉ber die Landes-und Gemeindesteuern) (3), (‘the Tax Act‘� between 1996 and 2006.

2.2. Definition of investment undertakings

The 1996 Liechtenstein Act on Investment Undertakings (Gesetz 眉ber Investmentunternehmen) (the ‘業nvestment Undertakings Act‘� defined investment undertakings as:

‘榓ssets raised from the public following public advertising for the purpose of a collective capital investment which are invested and managed for the collective account of the individual investors usually according to the principle of risk-spreading‘�a href="#ntr4-L_2012261EN.01002101-E0004" id="ntc4-L_2012261EN.01002101-E0004" shape="rect"> (4)