Note 25 Other operating expenses
€ million | 2016 | 2015 |
Additions / releases to provisions | 4 | -60 |
Premises and transport | 13 | 14 |
Rent and leases | 42 | 43 |
Corporate staff and ICT | 65 | 55 |
Sufferance tax and other taxes | 154 | 111 |
Other | 55 | 45 |
Total | 333 | 208 |
Other operating expenses amounted to €333 million in 2016 compared with €208 million in 2015. The increase of €125 million was mainly due to higher sufferance tax charges (up by €39 million) and the fact that other operating expenses in 2015 included exceptional gain of €66 million.
Severance tax charges in 2016 amounted to €149 million compared with €110 million in 2015. This increase of €39 million was due to the imposition of sufferance taxes by various new local authorities combined with higher rates of tax charged.
Additions to provisions amounted to €4 million (2015: €60 million released). The amount released in 2015 mainly concerns the settlement of the CDS for an amount of €66 million.
The remainder of the increase in operating expenses mainly relates to higher costs for professional services (particularly in relation to the Tulp project concerned with the purchase of the service area in Friesland and the Noordoostpolder), together with higher ICT costs.
For further disclosures relating to the costs of operating leases , reference is made to note [19].
The auditors' fees were as follows:
Auditors’ fees
€ million | 2016 | 2015 |
Description of services: | ||
Audit of the financial statements: | 0.8 | 0.8 |
Other assurance services | 0.2 | 0.3 |
Total | 1.0 | 1.1 |
The above fees relate to the activities carried out by the accountancy firms and external auditors in connection with the parent company and the companies included in the consolidation, as referred to in Section 1, subsection 1, of the Audit Firms Supervision Act (WTA) and the entire network of which the accountancy firm is part. These fees relate to the audit of the financial statements for 2015 and 2016.