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Eric Rollin of French accounting firm member Groupe Synerga, explains the main features of the new law are:
A simpler status for small businesses
The bill considers creating a simplified status for businessmen. This status would provide for a simple and more appealing tax and social security status. In this way, these “self-made businessmen” could choose to pay their social security contributions and tax on a monthly or quarterly basis calculated at a fixed 13% of the turnover for trade activities and a fixed 23% for service activities. This payment would be in full discharge, i.e. a receipt in full with no subsequent adjustment.
Protection of individual businessmen’s assets
In the future, an individual businessman could protect his main home and all his real-estate assets (built and non-built) which are not allocated to his business from professional debt collectors.
Reduction of payment deadlines
The deadlines for payment, which are especially lengthy in France (an average of 67 days!) will be cut down to 60 days from the issue date of the invoice.
Also, the minimum amount for penalties a provider could require from his customer in the event of late payment would be raised from 1.5 to 3 times the statutory interest rate, as it is currently viewed as not high enough to encourage punctual payment.
Ease of business takeovers
In order to make the takeover of businesses easier, the bill intends to lower the current transfer duty levied on the sale of a business whose value does not exceed EUROS 200,000 from 5% to 3%.
Company law simplification
A number of measures would simplify the company law applicable to small and medium-sized businesses. No minimum capital (currently EUROS 37,000 minimum capital is required) would be required for simplified corporations and they would only be required to appoint an auditor if they exceed these thresholds.
According to Nicolas Sarkozy, all of these measures are aimed at engendering a new generation of businessmen. The provisions of the law on modernization of the economy are going to have a significant effect on all the stages of the life of a business and are going to favour growth and full-employment by generating “an annual growth increase of 0.3% from 2009 and 50,000 extra jobs per year."
For more information
Please contact Eric Rollin at Groupe Synerga
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