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by ddebernardy 2286 days ago
Yes, at least in France. They passed (or merely announced?) a number of measures so that SMEs don't collapse due to treasury problems: postponed/cancelled taxes and contributions, paid time off for the staff without the usual delays, etc.

As I understood they took example on what Germany did in 2008, and learned from what worked over there. Whether all countries do the same is another story altogether, but at least in France they might save a good number of jobs (by inflating the public debt, but that's a separate issue).
1 comments
MuffinFlavored 2286 days ago
> postponed/cancelled taxes

If a business loses 2-3 quarters of revenue/profit due to COVID-19, how will they "make it back" to payback their previously postponed taxes (from the quarter they made little to no money in)?

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venj 2286 days ago
French business owner here. The current goal is to prevent companies from failing to avoid mass unemployment:

- If you need to suspend your workers contracts, they are covered by the state. No need to fire them.

- all tax collections have been suspended

- your credit lines with commercial banks are covered by the state, so you can suspend payments or increase them if needed

- The BPI (Public Investment Bank) has an emergency loan available for companies that could run out of cash due to the situation.

They are not talking about the aftermath yet but these efforts cost a huge amount of money. My guess is that they will recover money by raising taxes for several years.

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rad_gruchalski 2286 days ago
Can‘t speak for France but in Germany companies and self employed pre-pay taxes. Say you made 200k profit gross in 2018, it was your first year of operation. Your tax rate is 42%. We keep it simple, Freiberufler, no Gewerbesteuer.

You filed the tax return in May 2019. your tax gets calculated and you have to pay 84k. You will have to pay only in 2020. But here‘s the catch. Finanzamt will assume you operate throughout 2019 at the same level as 2018. so they take 2*84k as a pre-payment for 2019 from you AND every quarter of 2020 they ask you to pay a quarter of 84k as a pre-payment for 2020.

I assume they will not ask for those pre-payments. That will help a lot.

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