Article 8 of the Fund Law lays down that the value of the sector’s eligible turnover corresponds to the amount of sales and services provided on national territory, after deducting the amounts corresponding to: (i) revenues from activities not related to the provision of electronic communications networks and/or publicly available electronic communications services; (ii) revenues from transactions between bodies that belong to the same undertaking; and (iii) sale of terminal equipment.
Article 15 of the Fund Law1 provides that companies providing public communications networks and/or publicly available electronic communications services, on national territory, must send to ANACOM, by 30 June every year, a statement on the preceding calendar year, signed by a person entitled to enter into legally binding commitments, acknowledged as such, with the turnover amount and other information required to calculate the eligible turnover.
Paragraph 4 of this article also sets out that “in case of termination of activity, undertakings must submit to ANACOM, within 15 working days from the date of termination, a statement with the value of turnover and other information referred to in paragraph 1 for the calendar year in progress, as well as a statement with the same information for the preceding calendar year, where the termination of activity takes place before 30 June”.
In order to guarantee an easier communication of information related to the amount of eligible turnover, ANACOM sent, on 08.06.2016, to companies registered as network operators and/or publicly available electronic communications service providers, in operation in 2015, a letter with a model statement to be completed and signed by the person entitled to enter into legally binding commitments, acknowledged as such.
Of the 95 companies contacted (apart from these, there were 4 companies that were not contacted, having ceased operations in 2015), 90 replied to ANACOM (plus one reply from a company that ceased operations during 2015 and which submitted a statement for the purpose of the Fund Law).
On the basis of statements received, ANACOM decided, on 21.07.2016, that several companies should be audited, namely those with the largest amount of eligible turnover, as well as those showing significant variations in terms of turnover compared to that registered for 2014, and for this reason 242 companies were audited, although some of them integrate the same economic group. It is noted that the eligible turnover of audited companies exceeds 99% of the sector’s ET (taking into account ET values resulting from the audit), the audit covering all companies required to pay the contribution, under articles 11 and 18 of the Fund Law.
For this purpose, on 21.07.2016, ANACOM awarded to Grant Thornton & Associados, SROC, Lda., the audit of the turnover declared by network operators and electronic communications service providers, in compliance with provisions of the Fund Law.
As regards remaining companies that were not audited, ANACOM checked the consistency and accurateness of amounts reported in statements, namely by comparing the overall value presented with values presented for the various items.
In some residual cases, irregularities were detected, their correction having been requested.
In several situations, ANACOM urged bodies that submitted statements reporting turnover information that were not signed by the persons entitled to enter into legally binding commitments, acknowledged as such, to submit statements including signatures with such acknowledgement, to remedy this shortcoming.
ANACOM also undertook an analysis of the few bodies that failed to submit any statement or information for the purpose of the Fund Law, seeking to obtain otherwise the respective ET value so as to obtain the amount of the sector’s ET, as explained below. In parallel, these bodies were urged, both via new communications and in some cases via telephone calls, to submit information required under the Fund Law.
Without prejudice to the assessment of situations of non-compliance with the Fund Law in the scope of legal action, ANACOM takes the view that such situations do not affect the calculation of the ET amount, given that, as delineated further hereunder, this situation concerns only few cases with a negligible impact, and in some cases it was possible to assume an ET on the basis of alternative sources of information.
Chapters below explain (2.1) the ET amount of audited companies, and as regards remaining companies, (2.2) the ET amount of companies that submitted relevant information for the purpose of the Fund Law, as well as (2.3) the ET amount taken into account in the case of companies that failed to submit any information.
1 Which also applies for the purpose of the extraordinary contribution, by reference laid down in article 22 of the Fund Law.
2 AR Telecom - Acessos e redes de telecomunicações, S.A.; Associação Porto Digital; BT Portugal - Telecomunicações Unipessoal, Lda.; Cabovisão - Televisão por Cabo, S.A.; Clara Net Portugal - Telecomunicações, S.A; COLT - Technology Services, Unipessoal, Lda.; CTT - Correios de Portugal, S.A.; Dstelecom, S.A.; Fibroglobal - Comunicações Eletrónicas, S.A.; IP Telecom - Serviços de Telecomunicações, S.A; Knewon, S.A; Lycamobile Limited; Lycamobile Portugal, Lda.; MEO - Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia, S.A.; Mundio Mobile (Portugal) Limited; NACACOMUNIK - Serviços de Telecomunicações, Lda.; NOS - Comunicações, S.A.; NOS Açores Comunicações, S.A.; NOS Madeira Comunicações, S.A.; Onitelecom - Infocomunicações, S.A; Orange Business Portugal, S.A.; Telefónica International Wholesale Services II, S.L. Unipersonal, Portugal branch; Vodafone Enterprise Spain, S.L. - Portugal branch; Vodafone Portugal, S.A.
- 2.1. Eligible turnover of audited companies https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=390111
- 2.2. Eligible turnover of remaining companies that submitted information and were not audited https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=390112
- 2.3. Eligible turnover of companies that failed to convey information for the purpose of the Fund Law https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=390113
- 2.4. Determination of the sector's eligible turnover https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=390114
- 2.5. Rectifications and adjustments to the sector's eligible turnover in previous years https://www.anacom.pt/render.jsp?categoryId=390115