The law said “for a State in the service of a trustworthy society” (“ESSOC law”) dated August 10th 2018 reduces the late interest of 50% in case of spontaneous rectification of a filing mistake before any control.

This amends the existing measure (art. 1727 of the French Tax Code) according to which any tax debt that has not been paid within the legal period gives rise to the payment of late interests which –from January 1st, 2018, equal to 0.20% per month.

Late interests are not considered as penalties and apply regardless of the taxpayer’s good faith. Complementing this system, ESSOC law grants a 50% reduction of late interests to the “bona fide” taxpayer who spontaneously rectifies filing mistake, without any tax control.

Warning: the measure only concerns mistakes or omissions made in good faith in a tax return made filed on time.

The new measure applies to corrected tax returns filed on or after August 11th, 2018.

Following the Finance Bill for 2018 which actualized the contents of the TP documentation to be drafted by the French companies concerned, this regulation notably establishes that this documentation should be put at the disposal of the tax authorities in an electronic format allowing them to read, analyze and check any information, computation, selection and classification executed in the document.

For any additional information on this subject, contact Pierre VERMESSE or Marie-Hélène GUIDON