also another question that no one has answered yet:I want to know about how the french tax system treats profit on the sale of a business?Example, if i buy a business (bail+fond de commerce) for 20,000€ and sell it 4 years later for 60,000€ how much tax do I have to pay on this and what would the percentage be?thank you!!
Provided the transaction is as simple as mentioned above, and provided tax rules do not change (they tend to change quite quickly in France these days), you would have to pay about 13200 euros in tax contributions (1/3 of the 40000 capital gain). Besides, when you buy you are liable to pay about 3% in various taxes and contributions to have the purchase recorded.
Experience: 8 years as a Senior judge at Paris Conseil de Prud'hommes (Paris Industrial Tribunal)
Thank you for your answer!!My friend recently made me think if I held the business for 8 years, then at the end of the 8 years I won't have to pay capital gains tax...this is the information she gave me, do you think I could take this as fact to go into a business? :Si vous avez créé une entreprise soumise à l'impôt sur les sociétés, les titres que vous possédez font partie de votre patrimoine privé. Si vous les revendez, vous serez soumis au régime classique des plus-values mobilières et paierez un impôt sur la plus-value. Le montant de la plus-value ou moins value est diminué d'un tiers par année de détention au-delà de la cinquième, ce qui aboutit à une exonération totale au terme de huit ans (hors prélèvements sociaux). Mais attention : ce délai de détention ne commence qu'au 1er janvier 2006. Les abattements ne seront donc applicables qu'aux cessions réalisées après le 1er janvier 2012, l'exonération portant sur les cessions postérieures au 1er janvier 2014. La société peut aussi céder le fonds de commerce et bénéficier éventuellement d'une exonération (cf. ci-après). http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/faq/1777-revendre-son-entreprise-l-impot-sur-les-plus-valuesthanks again!
The case you mention is applicable (or at least was applicable 4 years ago) to new businesses created from scratch. If you simply buy a share in an existing business, your capital gains are subject to the same taxes and social contribution as those you would pay on capital gains made on listed stock. Yet if you invest in new right issues of a small business (as defined by EU regulations), you may deduct part of your investment from your taxable income if you pay income tax in France.
Dear Mr Perrin,thanks again for your quick reply.My situation is this, we're looking into buy a business and the owners are offering us a special "package" price for the fond de commerce and bail but requesting us to pay them part of the sale proceeds in cash. This raise the question I asked above as I don't want to end up footing the tax for the cash parts we paid them when we eventually sell our business.To benefit from the above capital gains break (8 years), would you say it would be better for us to not buy the fond de commerce from them and just buy the bail so we can set up our own SARL to avoid paying capital gains tax in the future (if we run the business for more than 8 years).thank you!
I did some research about the current legislation, you could avoid paying capital gain tax upon the sale of your business after 8 years only if (article 150-0 D ter du CGI):- you sell for retirement purposes +- you 've purchased the business before January 1st, 2006 (obviously not your case)- the business must have generated over 50% of your business income over these 8 years- you must sell all the shares you have in the business upon your retirement and you must have owned at least 25% of the business for over 5 years...- you must retire within two years of selling or have retired 2 years max before selling.The only measure left besides this one is to avoid paying CGT (now at 34,5% rate) if you keep the business for at least 8 years AND reinvest at least 80% of the proceeds of the sale in another business in another business (some criteria apply to both businesses) article 150-0 D bis du CGI