The public authorities have just drawn up a comprehensive support plan for the self-employed. Announced on September 16, 2021, by the French President in person, this plan includes 20 measures that revolve around 5 main topics.
Some of the measures will be part of the law designed for the self-employed, while the remaining measures will be stipulated either in the Finance Bill for 2022, or in the Social Security budget act for 2022, which will be voted at the end of 2021 or at the beginning of 2022. You find below the main measures envisaged.
Creating a unique protective status for sole proprietors
First, it is planned, for the sake of simplification, to create a single legal status for sole proprietors. As a result, the outdated status of sole proprietorship with limited liability (Entrepreneur Individuel à Responsabilité Limitée (EIRL)) would be abolished.
At the same time, all the personal assets of the sole proprietor would automatically become immune from seizure by his/her professional creditors. Previously, only the principal residence of sole proprietors was immune from seizure.
Another measure would make it easier to convert a sole proprietorship into a company. This could be carried out in a single operation. Previously, multiple operations were necessary to transfer each item or contract from the sole proprietorship to the company.
Improving and simplifying the social protection of the self-employed
The second focus of the plan aims to improve and simplify the social protection of the self-employed.
For this purpose, it is envisaged to open the so-called “status of collaborating spouse” to the business owner’s life partner, married to him/her or not. Till now, this status has been reserved to the person married to the business owner or to the one who has signed with the latter a PACS(1). However, the status is transitional in nature, and can be used only for a maximum of 5 years in a career. This time limit is stipulated to avoid an eventual economic dependence of the spouse/partner on the business owner.
Significant change: the amount of the social contributions payable by self-employed workers depend, as much as possible, on the exact income they make.
Facilitating professional retraining and training of the self-employed
In part three of the plan, three measures intended to facilitate the professional retraining and training of self-employed workers are provided for, namely:
- making them eligible for the allowance for self-employed workers, i.e., the specific unemployment insurance of about € 800 per month for 6 months, when they have definitively ceased to exercise their activity because it is not economically viable, and not only, as it has been the case till now, when they are concerned by receivership or liquidation proceedings;
- loosening the minimum income requirement for receiving this allowance. Thus, the amount required in the future would only be a minimum of €10,000 over one of the last two years of self-employment, instead of a minimum of €10,000 on average over the last two years:
- doubling the tax credit for the training of managers of small businesses.
Promoting the transfer of businesses and know-how
Fourth focus of the plan: promoting the transfer of companies.
For this purpose, several tax measures are envisaged, including a temporary tax deduction from the depreciation of goodwill and an increase in the ceilings for partial and total exemption of capital gains made on the sale of sole proprietorships.
Copyright : Les Echos Publishing 2021
Crédits photo : DR