Dutch TPG fears of postal market liberalisation are justified
TPG Post, the mail business of Dutch mail and logistics group TNT NV, has every reason to worry that differences in value added tax (VAT) regulations in European countries could be an obstacle for the liberalisation of the Dutch postal market, according to a report on behalf of the Dutch Economic Ministry.
The report was published on April 7, 2006, the day when Government was set to discuss the draft law for the liberalisation of the Dutch postal market. The bill, which Dutch Economics Minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst will seek to make effective as of April 1, 2007, would mean the end of the monopoly of TNT.
According to local research agency Ecorys Nederland’s report, UK and German companies are most likely to step on the liberalised Dutch postal market. But VAT differences in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany are significant and as a result TPG will be put at a disadvantage against UK Royal Mail and Germany’s Deutsche Post, the agency said.
The European Union (EU) requires from all of its members to liberalise their postal markets by 2009. The UK liberalised its market in 2006 and Germany will do it as of 2008.
In the meantime TPG filed a lawsuit against the British tax authorities which at the beginning of 2006 abolished an earlier granted exemption from VAT to TPG. The company also brought the VAT case before the European Commission (EC).
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