Thank you to our friends at Lawrence Graham LLP, Monaco for this update.
Trustee’s filing requirements: What deadline?
On 23 December 2011 the French Tax Authorities issued a Tax Ruling regarding the filing obligations applicable to Trustees under the new law. According to the French Tax Authorities, the relevant date for this year’s filing requirements is 31 July 2011 (and not 1 January 2012 as expected). Therefore, Trusts with French connections on 31 July 2011 (e.g. French tax resident Settlors and/or Beneficiaries and/or French sited assets) will have to be disclosed this year to the French Tax Authorities. The French Tax Authorities also want to know of any modifications and terminations of Trusts made from 31 July 2011 to 31 December 2011.
What about the deadline to disclose?
The new law gives a deadline of 15 June (15 June 2012 in respect of this year). However, in particular due to the change of Government and Cabinet, there have been delays with the issue of the awaited Tax Instruction and the Decree which are supposed to give us further details regarding these filing obligations.
We have been told that the Tax Instruction and the Decree are now awaiting approval from the relevant Government Cabinet in order to be issued.
According to our sources, in the Tax Instruction and the Decree, the French Tax Authorities have proposed the following deadlines regarding the filing obligations (to be consistent with the current Wealth tax deadlines):
- 31 August of the relevant tax year (31 August 2012 for this year) in respect of non French tax resident Settlors;
- 15 June of the relevant tax year (15 June 2012 for this year) in respect of French tax resident Settlors. However, in respect of this year only, this 15 June deadline should be postponed to 31 August 2012.
The French Tax Authorities are waiting to obtain confirmation from the Cabinet to officially communicate these deadlines. At that point we will be able to confirm these dates.
For more information please contact:
Frederic Mege
Head of French Tax
Lawrence Graham LLP
+377 93 10 55 10
+33 6 7863 8582 (mob)
frederic.mege@lg-legal.com