A few weeks ago Frédéric Lefèbvre, the Secretary of State for Tourism, Trade and SMEs reassured members of the UMIH, a national union gathering hoteliers and restaurateurs, that the 7% TVA increase would affect all forms of restaurants and hotels, including snacks and gites. So where do you stand with this new rule supposed to be applied on 1st Janaury 2012? Will you have to pay a 7% TVA on your gite and chambre d'hotes?
This issue was raised by UMIH, which requested for the whole industry to be treated equally, including all forms of food such as fast food, traditional restaurants or take-aways and all forms of accommodation such as hotels, gites ans chambres d’hôtes.
Frédéric Lefebvre, who was speaking at Saint-Malo on the last day of the UMIH annual conference, confirmed that the government did not want to create a distortion and therefore confirmed that all forms of restoration and all forms of tourist accommodation would be taxed at 7% from 1st January 2012.
Roland Heguy, President of the UMIH, had asked that all actors of the restoration sector, including bakers, department stores, gas stations, etc.are on a par with the rest of the restoration sector. He also added that the gites and chambre d’hôtes were becoming direct competitors of the hotels and should therefore be treated equally.
A lot has been said on English forums about this subject. Will it really be applied on 1st January 2012? What you have to bear in mind is that the Loi de Finance 2011 will have to be modified before this new law can be voted and implemented.
Furthermore, many gites and chambres d’hôtes owners are registered as auto-entrepreneurs or micro-entreprises and are therefore not liable to TVA. This new law would mean that the franchise would have to be cancelled for all existing companies. This seems very unlikely.
We are getting close to the 2012 presidential elections and many official statements are being made, much lobbying is underway. The recent plan to add a compulsory accountancy check on auto-entrepreneurs was another exemple. The bottom line is that the law has to be changed, voted and implemented in order for the 7% TVA to be applied and this might take some time.