There seems to have been a slight
misunderstanding by certain advisors as to the full declarative
obligations falling on Trustees under the new French trusts
legislation, as at 31st July, 2011.
Certain trustees appear to have been
advised that they did not have to declare trusts settled prior to
31st July 2011 on an initial événementielle declaration, contrary
to Art. 344 G sexies of the decree n° 2012-1050 of 14th September
2012.
That should have been followed up
with a declaration of intervening changes, for example, in the
beneficial class between July 2011 and September 2012, including
exclusions. However that is not the point here. Such trustees who
then filed the 2012 levy declaration, may have as yet not been
notified of an omission: technically there is an admission of
non-compliance as to the event even though most of the event
declaration details are on the levy declaration.
Given the registration details of
the French Register of trusts coming into force, the position of
any trustee with a declared or as yet undeclared French connection
needs review.
The administration made it very
clear in its instruction BOI-PAT-ISF-30-20-30-20121016 that trusts existing prior to 31st July, 2011 had to be
declared.
§310
L'administrateur du trust doit
déposer une déclaration événementielle dans les cas suivants
:
- pour les trusts
existants à la date du 31 juillet 2011, une déclaration d'existence
précisant leurs termes. Cette déclaration précise notamment le
contenu de l'acte de trust et, le cas échéant, des éventuelles
stipulations complémentaires régissant le fonctionnement du trust.
Pour les trusts existants à la date du 31 juillet 2011, le lieu de
résidence fiscale du constituant ou du bénéficiaire réputé
constituant et des bénéficiaires est apprécié au 31 juillet
2011 ;
- pour les trusts dont la
constitution intervient à compter du 31 juillet 2011, une
déclaration précisant notamment leurs
termes ;
- pour l'ensemble des
trusts concernés par l'obligation déclarative, une déclaration des
modifications ou extinctions intervenant à compter du 31 juillet
2011, précisant notamment les termes du trust.
Trustees needing assistance here in
making a rectifying declaration to avoid the €10.000 or 5% penalty
(now 20,000€) in force then should contact Peter for assistance.
Also note that these penalties were increased to €20.000 or 12.5%
in December, 2013 and corrected as unconstitutoinal to 20.000€
after a Con,stitutional Court decision.