Implementation of E-reporting in France

France, as other European Union countries, combats VAT fraud. Therefore, the country decided to implement both e-invoicing and e-reporting, the latter being the transmission to the administration of certain information relating to commercial transactions that are not included in the former.

This requirement will give the French tax authorities an overall view of the economic activity and working of any given company, which will significantly facilitate the detection of tax fraud and increase the collection of VAT.

Who?

Generally speaking, all VAT taxpayers established in France who carry out their business with individual or non-taxable legal customers, or with foreign operators.

What?

Primarily, the obligation concerns transactions described by Article 290 of the General Tax Code, for example:

• Supplies of goods taxed in France, when the recipient of those goods is a non-taxable person
• Supplies of goods dispatched from France to another EU Member State
• Supply of services deemed not to be located in France
• Intra-Community acquisitions of tangible movable property located in France

Second, the reporting of payment data, such as the date of collection and the amount collected including VAT, broken down by VAT rate if applicable, to be transmitted to the tax administration.

What’s excluded?

Taxpayers don’t have to report transaction which are outside the scope of VAT or these benefiting from VAT exemptions, such as medical services, insurance and educational services, etc.

When?

The implementation of e-reporting follows the same timetable as that for e-invoicing:

1. Large companies - from July 1, 2024
2. Medium-sized companies - from January 1, 2025
3. All other companies - from January 1, 2026

How?

Data must be transmitted by the company carrying out the operation through:

1. A dematerialization platform partner (‘PDP’) or
2. A public invoicing portal (‘PPF’)

The French tax authorities promised that multiple modes and formats of transmission will be possible.

Businesses will be able to enter or transmit a summary of the transactions carried out over the period.

In the case of issuing invoices to international customers or to private individuals, businesses will be able to submit these invoices directly in the appropriate format on the selected dematerialization platform or public invoicing portal. One or the other will extract only the data useful for e-reporting for the needs of the tax authorities.

There’s more you should know about e-invoicing in France – learn more about the new and upcoming regulations.