Smaller firms can leave tax to Urssaf
Small businesses will be able to benefit from help with organising their employees’ “at source” tax payments, the government has clarified.
Firms with fewer than 20 employees will be able to use, free of charge, the Titre Emploi Service Entreprise (Tese) system which is already used for employees’ social charges.
Using the online platform at letese.urssaf.fr, small firms will be able to leave it to Urssaf to calculate the declaration and payment of the employees’ income tax from January.
The TESE centre will use information received from the tax offices to work out the amounts due on each salary and will tell employers how much net salary to give an employee (after tax). Tax will then be levied from the employer by Urssaf at the same time as the social charge amounts that are due.
Business people can find out more at prelevementalasource.gouv.fr or call a dedicated “at source tax” helpline on 0811 368 368 (six centimes/minute + normal price of the call).
Note that it is planned that nothing will change in 2019 for members of the public who employ staff providing personal services in their homes.
This exception for particuliers employeurs would include those who pay gardeners, nannies or cleaners etc, usually via the Cesu scheme.
This will change by 2020, but the tax issues will then be dealt with by the Cesu centre that employers are used to dealing with for social charges.
There will be an option to leave everything to the centre, including paying the employee, or there will be a system as for the small businesses mentioned above.
To avoid double tax in 2020, employees will pay a tax instalment for 2019 at the end of the year, based on 2018 income, with regularisation in 2020.
There are also new arrangements for the tax credit obtainable for paying workers in the home. If you previously had such a credit in 2018, based on 2017 income, you will obtain 60% of it in January 2019, then the rest will be regularised in August 2019 once income for 2018 is known.
