Platforms for sale or rental between individuals such as Airbnb, Leboncoin or Vinted must now declare to the tax authorities the income from transactions carried out by their users. Impossible to cheat!
Have you chosen to sell your old library or the clothes your children no longer wear on the Internet? Be careful, because income earned from person-to-person sales, online or not, may be taxable under certain conditions. And it’s impossible to ignore it! Since 2020, collaborative economy platforms must send the tax authorities a summary of the transactions carried out by their users over the past year. Small change this year however, with the entry into force of the seventh revision of the European directive on administrative cooperation (known as “DAC 7”), which requires platforms such as Airbnb, Amazon, LeBonCoin, Etsy, Vinted and eBay to produce their declarations in a new format. The latter aims to harmonize practices across the continent and strengthen cooperation between Member States to combat tax fraud. They have until January 31 to do so. This will change things for individuals who sell their products or offer their accommodation there!
Sales platforms between individuals: income to declare to the tax authorities
As usual, all platforms located in France or abroad and whose users reside in France or make sales there must send to the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFIP) a summary file showing the number and amount of operations carried out by their users during the year 2023. At the same time, they must communicate a personalized summary to each of their users and inform them of their possible tax obligations. The data transmitted to public finances includes the first and last name (or the legal or commercial name for a company), the address, the tax identification number (or the SIREN for a professional), the date of birth (or the intra-community VAT number for a company), the address of the property, the land registration number and the number of rental days if it concerns the rental of an apartment. As soon as the data is collected, the platform transmits it once a year to the tax administration.
Note that not all users are affected by the tax declaration of the platforms, provided they have made less than 3,000 euros in revenue or less than 20 transactions. “If the user has exceeded each of these two thresholds, the platform must declare the income to the tax administration: it is in fact possible that it is then a professional activity”explains the General Directorate of Public Finances (DGFIP) on its website.
Vinted, Leboncoin, Airbnb declarations: fighting online fraud
These rules, which form what is called DPI (Digital Platform Information), were put in place with two objectives. The first is to help users comply with their tax obligations by completing their tax returns using the document summarizing the operations they have carried out during the year. The second is to respond to the rapid growth of the digital economy by allowing the tax administration to better fight fraud, by identifying people who “engage in an activity in a habitual or professional capacity on collaborative economy sites, without having previously registered as such and without respecting the tax and social obligations incumbent upon them in this capacity”underlines the DGFIP.
Any late submission of their declaration by the platforms may be punished by a fine. Those who do not respect the obligation to inform their users of their tax and social obligations risk a financial penalty of up to 50,000 euros – 5,000 euros in the event of a first offense. As for those who do not transmit information on transactions to users and the tax administration, they risk a fine equal to 5% of the undeclared sums. That’s because we don’t joke with the tax authorities!