Since July 1st 2016, tax reassessments by the French tax authority can be subject to a referral procedure to the national RTC commission in order to ease conciliation between taxpayers and the tax administration and to limit litigation cases related to the RTC.
- Commission role: involved in conflicts between taxpayers and the French tax authority concerning the reality of the allocation of research expenditures to the RTC. The commission is qualified to give an advice on matters of fact and not on law. Referral procedure of the committee can only be done in the context of a tax inspection. Requests for RTC reimbursement do not lie within the competence of the commission.
- Deadline: taxpayers can send their demand directly to the commission or ask the administration to do so within 30 days of receipt of the observations from the tax authority to the company’s answers to the notice of reassessment (tax form n°3926-SD).
- Composition of the commission: a Supreme Court judge (with one or two administrative judges), an agent of the French Tax authority and an agent of the French ministry of research.
- Function of the commission: The commission can ask a complementary technical report from a Ministry of research expert on the research expenditures. The commission’s opinion has to be justified and notified to the taxpayers by the administration. Meanwhile, the tax administration also has to notify the proposed final amount of RTC after taking into account the Commission’s opinion. The administration is not bound by the commission’s opinion.