March 11, 2021
Background
The emerging and continuous innovation and the increased demand for streaming platforms, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic, are testing the boundaries of the Digital Taxation. In line with the procedures adopted around the world, recently, Portugal has published Law no. 74/2020 in order to support Portuguese cinema and audiovisual production through the introduction of a levy commonly known as ’Netflix Tax’.
These amendments create an annual subscription fee for audiovisual media services, namely for video-on-demand (VoD) and streaming services providers, which includes multinational giants Netflix, HBO, Apple TV, Amazon TV and Disney+, and smaller-scale European or national providers.
Since November 2020, it was announced that ’Netflix tax’ would come to Portugal in a near future. That commitment is closer to an end as, in theory, the ’Netflix Tax’ came into force last February 17 2021. However, this law is waiting for the final regulation, that is expected to be published by the Portuguese Government soon.
In practical terms, the audiovisual on-demand service operators will be subject to an annual levy corresponding to 1% of their ‘relevant income’ in Portugal (similar to what already exists in respect of the audiovisual commercial communications for television operators and operators of audiovisual on-demand services, or subscriptions for conditional access television operators, as well as other types of income and operators).
Notwithstanding, when it is not possible to assess the value of the service operators’ audiovisual on-demand subscriptions’ ‘relevant income’, the levy’s annual amount is assumed to be €1 million.
Please note that all the revenues collected by this regime will be provided to the Portuguese Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual (ICP) to support and promote the development of this new “Digital Era”.
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The information presented above is not intended to be an exhaustive analysis of all the changes to the current legal regime, but rather a selection of those that we believe to be the most relevant, and does not preclude consultation of our Company and / or legislation to which it refers.
For more information contact: Catarina Breia (+351 91 7575 832 or cbreia@pt-nexia.com) from our Tax Department.
