Abreu Advogados advises energy producers that won a challenge in wind farm tax valuation case

The Administrative and Fiscal Court of Viseu has decided to overturn the act fixing the tax value of wind turbine towers, on the grounds that they are equipment for producing electricity and not a construction or building.

This decision was handed down last week in a case in which Maria Dulce Soares, Alexandra Courela, partners at Abreu Advogados, and Natacha Reinolds Pombo, a Of Counsel, advised group of renewable energy companies, in which they challenged the legality of the Tax Authority’s decision to set the Taxable Asset Value (Valor Patrimonial Tributário).

The Court’s decision once again accepts the view that wind turbine towers are electricity production equipment and not a construction or building and, as such, do not fall within the concept of a building for the purposes of Municipal Property Tax (IMI). It therefore concludes that any other understanding that would allow the taxation of equipment would be directly contrary to the rules of the IMI Code and would violate the taxation of property, in the terms in which it is constitutionally enshrined.