New administrative guidelines with respect to staff and subcontracting expenses
On December 7th, the French Tax Administration (FTA) released new official guidelines with respect to staff expenses (following a public consultation that took place over the summer), and subcontracting expenses. These new guidelines take into account most of the changes proposed by Deloitte Société d’Avocats during the consultation period.
On staff expenses
Precisions on the notion of Research staff
The administration softens its approach on certain aspects by following recent caselaw on the qualification level of researchers and research technicians by putting forward the notion of acquired experience (without being limited to employees graduated only with a research technician diploma). Interns, trainees and international volunteers are confirmed that they can qualify as research staff.
Furthermore, the Administration also reminds that the secondment of staff can be eligible under certain conditions
Young doctors
As for young doctors, the administration presents detailed modalities applying to the regime with respect to:
The notion of “first recruitment” to be respected to benefit from the regime, eg : after a restructuring operation in a company along with staff transfer, tax benefits relative to young doctors can remain
The choice of the methodology used to evaluate the variation of the research staff is left to the company (the research staff should not decrease for the young doctor benefit to be applied).
Compulsory social contributions
This new administrative guideline indicates that employer’s contribution for life insurance schemes resulting from “conventions or collective agreements” are eligible as well as contribution also resulting from “corporate referendums or unilateral decisions made by the employer”.
Profit-sharing
The profit sharing becomes eligible only paid to the employees (not when incurred)
On subcontracting expenses
In case a subcontractor asks for the removal of its RTC certification, the Administration indicates that the ordeting party (principal) can take into account in the RTC every eligible expense incurred with this subcontractor, if and only if their contract was signed before the date of removal of the certification of the subcontractor.
The date of signature of the contract compared to the date of the certification removal should serve as criterion.