The French VAT anti-fraud law (loi 2015-1785) is currently running a lot of ink. In particular, sellers are worried about article 88.
What is the law about?
From January 1st 2018, the law requires companies entitled to French VAT using any management system dealing with payments to be compliant with specific conditions of indestructibility, security, retention and data storage. (Therefore a payment system, accounting software, cash register and so forth…)
This reform is aimed at helping French Tax Administration control and fight against VAT fraud, estimated to stand for a 14 billions euros shortfall every year.
What do sellers have to do?
To become compliant with the law, your payment administration system must be certified by an accredited organization and provide you with a certificate of compliancy. Therefore, the whole ecosystem of payment solutions, management tools and accounting softwares have been working hard to get there over the past few years. What about PrestaShop ?
In this article from 06/06/17 in French, PrestaShop opens up for the first time :
The software will be compliant when the law comes into effect. In other words, it will be certified to the new regulations and able to provide sellers with a certificate. This will be done through a module currently under development and soon to be integrated natively into PrestaShop and for free.
202 ecommerce therefore anticipates sellers will have little falling on their plate. We shall relay any updates and tutorials from PrestaShop about generating your certificate. This being said, the law has been significantly mitigated over spring and no longer apply to all sellers.
To whom it may concern
The law was originally meant to apply to all management systems including all channels management softwares, online and offline, ERP and so forth. But it was eventually reduced to physical points of sales only. Therefore shall be concerned by the law, PrestaShop sellers managing brick and mortar points of sales, whether it is a physical store, a corner shop in a mall or any place collecting physical payments.
Since spring, PrestaShop is no longer required to comply with the law except for its modules collecting payment in physical points of sales. However their COO has confirmed still proceeding to full compliancy for the software all together before Jan 1st 2018. This news shall definitely ease the most preoccupied minds !