Filenews 15 November 2022 - by Eleftheria Paizanou
In the midst of the internal consultations conducted by the government side to find a formula for taxing the excess profits made by electricity producers from the use of renewable energy sources (photovoltaics), AKEL's law proposals, which recommends the imposition of a 90% tax on windfall profits, are put before the Parliamentary Committee on Trade today. Last month, the Government had assured that the proposal for the taxation of excessive profits would be ready in November, which has not yet been done.
With the first proposal for a law, the law on the operation of the RES Fund is amended, with the aim of imposing a "retaliatory fee" on electricity producers using GDP. The second proposal for a law amends the Law on Taxation, so that the windfall profits of electricity companies from RES are taxed at 90%. The same tax rate will apply to the windfall profits, if any, of fuel distributors and oil companies, for 2022.
In today's debate in the Parliament, AKEL MPs are expected to prioritise the tax regime applied by Italy, Spain and Greece, in relation to the taxation of windfall profits in the energy sector. It is most likely that the Government will not accept the proposals of the opposition and will demand that the settlement of the issue be done through the bills that it is working on itself. The government bill will be based on the findings of the working group of the Ministries of Finance and Energy as well as CERA, which evaluated the existing RES plans implemented in the country and the pricing they apply. A few weeks ago, Finance Minister Konstantinos Petrides stated that there are too few super profits to have a meaningful effect on consumers. As he said, the profits are estimated at about €70 million and the overprofit is limited (some leaks from the government side limited it to €5 million compared to 2021).
