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martensen
Community Member

French Auto-Entrepreneurs - please help!

Hi everyone!


I'm registered as an Auto-Entrepreneur in France since September last year, and I have a question other Upwork users may be best equipped to answer. 

 

As an Auto-Entrepreneur, I cannot register tax-deductible expenses, which I used for the Upwork fees  before I moved to France. So when I did my first tax return for the last quarter of 2018, I declared my earnings before the deduction of the Upwork fee, considering those to be my actual earnings, and the fees the expenses.

 

Example: I made 300$ from a client, paid 10% fees on it, so my actual profit is 270$. The invoice, however, is 300$, so I would declare it as 300$. Of course, that's to my disadvantage, since I'm paying taxes on money that didn't actually end up on my bank account, but it seemed to me that that's the correct way, since that is the amount on the invoices.

 

Now, in another topic on this issue, someone said something to the opposite of my approach:

 

"You have to report your actual earnings, which in this case would be the $270 once converted in €. Your business taxes will be calculated from this.

 

The French autoentrepreneur status is pretty straightforward: you report each € that hits your bank account, and you pay between 24% and 28% taxes on this, depending on your industry."

 

That would lower my tax burden, of course, which would be great, but I'm wondering if any other Auto-Entrepreneurs can give me some legal certainty. I couldn't find answers elsewhere, and maybe my French is sometimes to poor to understand all the nuances, so any help would be greatly appreciated!

1 REPLY 1
martina_plaschka
Community Member

I am not an expert in french tax law, but I expect that you only pay taxes on your net earning as in every other country, so that is gross earnings minus cost of earnings such as upwork fees, internet cost, laptop and all other cost you incur to earn money. 

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