Self-employed tax break until 2013

AUTO-ENTREPRENEURS have had a last-minute reprieve from a new tax that could have seen some people with tiny incomes, or none, pay up to €2,000.

A body representing people registered under the simple business regime has negotiated a change in the law, which means no auto-entrepreneurs need to pay the Cotisation Foncière des Entreprises (CFE) until 2013.

Sole traders who started their businesses in 2009 (the first year of the regime) have been receiving bills asking them to pay the tax this month unless, when they set up, they had chosen an optional income tax system, the micro-fiscal.

Forms are also starting to be sent out to auto-entrepreneurs who started in 2010, asking them for further information about their business and the premises they work from, ready for the 2011 bills.

While all auto-entrepreneurs pay no CFE in the year of setting up, all of them will now benefit from a three-year exoneration.

The Fédération des Auto-entrepreneurs hopes, by 2013, to negotiate a change in the way the CFE is calculated, making it proportional to turnover.

The group has published template letters on its website for any auto-entrepreneur who has received a CFE bill this year.

There are different versions of the letter, to be sent to your tax office, depending on whether it is your first year in business and the amount of turnover you have recorded.