N° 481
SENATE
ORDINARY SESSION 2016-2017
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Registered at the Senate's Presidency on 29 mars 2017 |
REPORT
MADE
in the name of the finance committee(1) on taxation and the collaborative economy : the need for a fair, simple and unified system.
By Messrs Éric BOCQUET, Michel BOUVARD, Michel CANEVET, Thierry CARCENAC, Jacques CHIRON, Philippe DALLIER, Vincent DELAHAYE, André GATTOLIN, Charles GUENÉ, Bernard LALANDE and Albéric de MONTGOLFIER,
Senators
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(1) This committee is composed of : Ms Michèle André , chair ; Mr Albéric de Montgolfier , general reporteur ; Ms Marie-France Beaufils, Messrs Yvon Collin, Vincent Delahaye, Ms Fabienne Keller, Marie-Hélène Des Esgaulx, Messrs André Gattolin, Charles Guené, Francis Delattre, Georges Patient, Richard Yung , vice-chairs ; Messrs Michel Berson, Philippe Dallier, Dominique de Legge, François Marc , secretaries ; Messrs Philippe Adnot, François Baroin, Éric Bocquet, Yannick Botrel, Jean-Claude Boulard, Michel Bouvard, Michel Canevet, Vincent Capo-Canellas, Thierry Carcenac, Jacques Chiron, Serge Dassault, Bernard Delcros, Éric Doligé, Philippe Dominati, Vincent Éblé, Thierry Foucaud, Jacques Genest, Didier Guillaume, Alain Houpert, Jean-François Husson, Roger Karoutchi, Bernard Lalande, Marc Laménie, Nuihau Laurey, Antoine Lefèvre, Gérard Longuet, Hervé Marseille, François Patriat, Daniel Raoul, Claude Raynal, Jean-Claude Requier, Maurice Vincent, Jean Pierre Vogel . |
FOREWORD
The collaborative economy is now part of everyday life for millions of people in France: they buy and sell on Leboncoin , travel with Blablacar , rent out their car on Drivy , their toddlers buggy on Zilok and their DIY skills on Stootie . Some are genuine professionals, like private hire (VTC) drivers or graphic designers on Hopwork .
This new economy, which provides numerous opportunities for exchanges between people and blurs existing lines, has always given the impression that it was developing outside any legal framework. However recent events such as UberPop being shut down, Heetch being interrupted or Airbnb's problems in Paris, have reminded us that this is not the case. More specifically, when it comes to taxation and social contributions, legal rules do exist .
With regard to taxation, there is no such thing as a grey areaontrary to what many users tend to believe, all income is taxable from the first euro, whatever its origin or amount, and regardless of whether it is occasional or from a sideline activity. Moreover, although most situations fall under ordinary law, some categories of income are actually subject to specific taxation regimes - which are often complex and outdated, and of which people are generally unaware.
There are only two exceptions. First, second-hand sales are generally not subject to tax - but their definition is imprecise. Second, cost-sharing, but it is defined in a very restrictive way - for example, it applies to ridesharing, but not to a family who rents out their car occasionally to cover their expenses.
As regards social contributions, on the contrary, this is a grey area, because there are no simple and objective criteria for distinguishing private individuals from professionals. There are no minimums in terms of income amount, time or frequency, meaning that a few hours of babysitting per month, or selling a few "hand-madejewellery items online, may result in compulsory affiliation to the self-employed social security regime ( Régime social des indépendants - RSI ) which comes together with the payment of social contributions and professional taxes, the obligation to attend a qualification course, to comply with health and safety standards, etc.
All these rules were designed for exchanges in a physicalworld, a world of week-end car boot sales, flea markets and minor services between neighbours. But in practice, no one actually questioned these rules because they were not enforced. The amounts at stake were low, and the controls were sparse.
Now that trading between private individuals has become massive, standardized, and traceable, it is no longer possible not to ask the question. On the one hand, if existing rules were enforced, they would discourage many private individuals and would deal a heavy blow to the sharing economy and its ecosystem. On the other hand, because they are not enforced, they allow widespread abuse, with fake” private individualswho avoid paying their taxes and social obligations and create both a distortion of competition and a loss of tax revenue.
On 29 March 2017, the Working Group of the Finance Committee of the French Senate on taxation of the digital economy, a non-partisan, collegial and informal subcommittee, presented a bill to establish a simple, unified and fair taxation regime for the collaborative economy 1 ( * ) . This regime, encompassing both taxation and social contributions, would be based on a single threshold of EUR 3,000 per year, known to all.
As regards taxation, it would allow an exemption of low, sideline and additional income received via online platforms. The advantage would then be regressive for higher income, ensuring that any person receiving significant income from online sources would be treated strictly equal to professionals in the physicalworld.
As regards social contributions, the threshold of EUR 3,000 would - at last - provide a criterion to distinguish between a private individual and a professional: under this threshold, it would never be compulsory to join the social security regime as a self-employed worker. Belgium and the United Kingdom also chose the simplicity of a threshold-based system.
In return for these benefits, the user would be required to accept that the platform automatically reports his income to the tax administration: this is not only a means of ensuring the fairness of treatment between all taxpayers, but it is also a service and a simplification of the procedures. This system exists in Estonia, where it has proved very successful.
In practice, the very large majority of users of collaborative economy platforms would actually be exempted from income tax thanks to the EUR 3,000 allowance - as everyone can see on the online simulator on the Senate website 2 ( * ). Moreover, everything that is exempted today (second-hand sales, car sharing, etc.) would remain so in the future, even for amounts greater than EUR 3,000. The measure does not create any new tax.
The bill also aims to change a number of obsolete rules, such as the maximum limit of two car boot sales per year and per person, or the obligation for public servants to obtain a written agreement from their authority to undertake a secondary activity two rules that seem totally unadapted to digital habits
It appears that many of the actors consulted by the Working Group welcomed those proposals, and among them digital platforms but also traditional professions. In fact, all of them ask for the same thing: a set of fair and simple rules, that are actually enforced.
This is what this report and the resulting bill are about: herein lies an opportunity that must not be missed.
* 1 This bill follows the initial proposals made in 2015. See, in this regard, Report No. 690 (2014-2015), The collaborative economy: proposals for simply, fair and efficient taxation , 17 September 2015, written by Michel Bouvard, Thierry Carcenac, Jacques Chiron, Philippe Dallier, Jacques Genest, Bernard Lalande and Albéric de Montgolfier.
*
2
http://www.senat.fr/espace_presse/actualites/201509/fiscalite_du_numerique_vers_un_
prelevement_plus_efficace.html#c632042