Notice to consumers accustomed to finding good deals on the Net: ordering a product online and having it delivered from abroad will soon cost much more. As of July 1, all packages from non-European states will be taxed from the first euro, in application of a European directive of 2017. Until now, if the value of the shipment was lower at 22 euros, no tax was applied.
“For consumers, this is a very big change because it is supposed to mark the end of tax-free purchases on the Internet. From now on, they will therefore have to pay VAT when ordering or on delivery of the product”, comments Yves-Marie Durand, the director of the postal customs center in Chilly-Mazarin (Essonne) – the largest in France – where the Minister Delegate for Public Accounts, Olivier Dussopt, came to defend this new rule which will soon come into force throughout the European Union. “In France, we will thus go from 15 million electronic customs declarations to 450 million”, estimated the minister who is counting on this development in terms of VAT on cross-border e-commerce to fight once morest unfair competition practiced on the Internet and recover in the coffers of the State several billion euros of shortfall.
Cdiscount is ready to adapt
The financial stakes are high given the increasingly important place of e-commerce in France and online sales platforms since the start of the Covid crisis. In the sights of state services: foreign platforms, such as Alibaba, which escape the tax administration. “We face competition from sellers, particularly in China, who charge knock-down prices without charging VAT and often split shipments to avoid tax,” emphasizes Bercy, who thus intends to limit the number of frauds.
Concretely, for a parcel from abroad whose value is 10 euros, the State will apply a tax of 20%, and will therefore charge 2 euros of VAT, for a total of 12 euros. A sum to be expected to avoid any unpleasant surprises at the time of receipt because in certain cases (delivery of a computer purchased on a foreign site which invoices excluding tax, for example), the invoice might fly away!
Will the consumer have to carry out other administrative procedures? “No, says an adviser to Bercy. VAT will be charged by online sales platforms, and if not, by carriers. “Contacted regarding these changes, the Cdiscount platform, which, like the others, is called upon to assume the collection of VAT on sales made on their site, claims to have already “worked a lot to implement the device” but is already worried, like other e-commerce platforms, “of potential delays in deliveries this summer due to the multiplication of parcel checks. »
