French General Tax Code
In forceI.-Locations and public establishments for inter-communal cooperation with their own tax status may, by a decision taken under the conditions provided for in article 1639 A bis, partially or totally exempt from business property tax establishments carrying out a commercial activity in a rural business revitalisation zone defined in III of this article.
The exemption ceases to apply from 1st January of the year following the year in which the establishment no longer carries on a commercial activity.
The resolutions remain in force until they are rescinded or amended.
II.-To benefit from the exemption provided for in I, an establishment must belong to a company that satisfies the following conditions:
1° The company employs fewer than eleven employees.
The number of employees in the company is assessed in accordance with the procedures set out in I of article L. 130-1 of the Social Security Code. By way of derogation from the same I, the period to be used to assess the number of employees is the penultimate year preceding the year of taxation.
When a company already benefiting from the exemption provided for in this article notes that the workforce threshold has been crossed, determined in accordance with the procedures set out in II of article L. 130-1 of the Social Security Code, this circumstance causes it to lose the benefit of this exemption;
2° The company has achieved an annual turnover excluding tax of less than 2 million euros during the reference period provided for in Article 1467 A, possibly corrected to correspond to a full year, or has a balance sheet total of less than 2 million euros.
III.-Classified as a zone for the revitalisation of businesses in rural areas are municipalities which, on 1 January 2020, satisfy the following conditions:
1° The municipal population is less than 3,500;
2° The municipality does not belong to an urban area with more than 10,000 jobs;
3° The municipality includes a number of establishments carrying out a commercial activity that is less than or equal to ten.
The data used are those available on 1st January of the year of classification and drawn up by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques, for the assessment of the criteria defined in 1° and 2°, and by the tax authorities, for the assessment of the criterion defined in 3°.
The classification of municipalities as rural business revitalisation zones on 1 January 2020 is established by joint order of the ministers responsible for the budget and regional planning.
IV.-To benefit from the exemption, businesses must apply for it, within the deadlines set out in article 1477, to the tax department responsible for each of the establishments concerned. If this application is not submitted within the time limits stipulated in the same article 1477, the exemption is not granted for the year in question.
The exemption applies to items declared within the time limits specified in the said article 1477.
V.-When an establishment meets the conditions required to benefit from one of the exemptions provided for in articles 1463 A, 1463 B, 1464 A, 1464 B, 1464 E, 1464 İ, 1464 İ bis, 1464 M, 1465,1465 A, 1465 B, 1466 A, 1466 D or 1466 F and that provided for in I of this article, the request for the benefit of the latter exemption under the conditions provided for in IV shall constitute an option for the latter. The option is irrevocable and applies to all municipalities and public establishments for inter-municipal cooperation.
In the absence of an option, the taxpayer continues to benefit from the application of the system from which he benefited before the introduction of the exemption provided for in this article.
VI.-The benefit of the exemption is subject to compliance with Commission Regulation (EU) No 1407/2013 of 18 December 2013 on the application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to de minimis aid.
