The French administration is cracking down on the payment of distance selling suppliers’ VAT
Normally, French businesses pay their outstanding VAT by SEPA transfer. SEPA procedure is a new interbank payment procedure complying with European bank standards (Single Euro Payments Area).
Up until now, the French tax administration has tolerated foreign companies to make a regular wire transfer every month, thus bypassing the SEPA procedure.
However these carefree times are at an end!
Already, we have dealt with several penalties from the Tax Administration as our clients have failed to pay via SEPA transfer (60€ for each non-compliant payment).
Hence, we highly recommend setting up a SEPA proxy with their corporate bank, and then we will declare our clients’ VAT figures, send them the tax returns and electronic submission there attached.
Thus allowing them to settle bank transfer.