Following the transposition of the European Directive 2015/849 on anti-money laundering and terrorist financing in France by the Ordonnance of February 12th, 2020, Article 1649 AB of the French Tax Code related to trust reporting requirements has been modified.
The scope of reporting obligations
The purpose of this Ordonnance was to extend the scope of the trust reporting obligation, implement the new criterion of « Business relationships » with France and add other information to be disclosed by the trustees in the trust returns.
Publication of new Trust returns
Until now, the French Tax authorities had not published the updated Trust returns meaning that the Trustees were obliged to use the former trust returns in order to comply with their Trust reporting obligations.
The French tax authorities have published the updated Trust returns, in line with the 2020 Ordonnance.
Given the late publication of such returns, we hope the French tax authorities would be tolerant with trustees who would have filed the 2021 trust returns on the basis of the 2019 annual return.