Can A Cross-Border E-Commerce Company Not Pay Tax After Completing A VAT Declaration On France?

Once cross-border sellers have successfully registered French VAT number, they need to start fulfilling their tax obligations under French tax law. Specifically, they must declare sales data and pay VAT in full within the required time limit.

Most French tax representatives required cross-border e-commerce companies take a monthly declaring schedule. The deadline for a monthly declaring and tax payments is the 24^th of the following month, for example the deadline for declaring sales in May 2020 is June 24, 2020.

Formal French tax representatives require cross-border sellers to file complete and truthful monthly sales reports on time, and determine taxes based on actual sales data. However, regardless of whether or not the sellers make remote sales in France, they must compete the declaring obligation on time. If the sales of the month are zero, then the amount of tax payable is zero, then sellers do not need to pay tax. All normal declarations other than zero declarations are required to pay tax after declaring.

If the cross-border sellers fail to pay their taxes on time, they will receive a tax reminder letter from the French tax authorities. Of course, it is received on their behalf by the tax representatives and should be promptly notified to them.

The percentage of penalty of French VAT are between 5% and 10%. In particularly egregious cases, the percentage of the penalty can be up to 80%.

As soon as the penalty is incurred, the French tax authorities will contact with tax representatives or even the headquarters of e-commerce planform such as AMAZON directly. And VAT number may even be cancelled by French tax authorities if the sellers are deemed to have egregious non-compliance with their tax obligations.

Therefore, once sellers have registered their VAT numbers, it is important what they have to work with their tax representatives to submit their monthly sales data and pay their tax on time in order to avoid tax risks and operational risks.