After months of turbulence and procrastination, European Union companies finally know what sauce they will eat. It will be 15% for everyone, with a categorical and negotiated foot on foot.
If companies in many sectors in France are concerned about this tax increase, a profession takes advantage of it: that of import-export advisors, supply chain specialists and fiscal lawyers.
Logically, experts wonder more and more. And for months.
What strategy did it prevail so far?
The same bell in the Fidal Business Law firm, where Najat Akodad, a fiscal lawyer, informs the client companies that have frozen internally awaiting the result of negotiations between Brussels and Washington.
This did not prevent them from launching negotiations with partners, suppliers and customers to try to limit the final price increases. The temporal increase in 10% customs tasks has been partially absorbed by reducing margins or negotiating with third parties, he assures the expert.
15% or the end of waiting -and
But at 15%, inertia is no longer sustainable.
For Marcie Reyno -Dalle, Patron of the Prosecutor, a specialized company that provides operational assistance in indirect taxes, the impact is safe on the types of declaration, both in supplies and exports.
“The flows and values are already subject to an accountant coupling, confirms the young woman. The supply chain still does not change. The maximum, some companies have tried to anticipate transporting more existers before the entry into the strength of the new rights. They also ask the question of their supplies, for example, energetic.”
Among febrile companies, there are a large part of the French export fabric. SMEs, ETIS, large companies in sectors as diverse as the export of wines, manufacturing industries, cars spare parts, wholesaler supply, robotics … Almost all sectors are worried. Even if all companies have no capacity for reaction or an identical strike force.
“Some companies resign to these new rules. Clearly between economic instability and certainty of a slightly painful increase, an option has been taken. The demand from the US market of their products certainly runs the risk of decreasing,” Marcie Reyno-Dalle analyzes. But most customers of the various companies (taxes, accounting or specialized in the supply chain) seek to know if there are no ways to ignore customs sanctions or at least lighten the invoice.
As for avoiding the rules of the game, the game promises to be tight.
So how to get yours at best? “As for customs prices, there are three parameters to take into account. The value of the good in which the tax, the origin, that is, that is, the place of manufacturing imported properties and finally the tariff position, that is, the category to which the product belongs,” says analysts.
Play with configuration
In this context, the mastery of the foundations of customs is more than ever necessary according to Marie Fernet. “First we must verify that the products have been well classified. For example, the steel and aluminum tables will be taxed with additional 50% rights over steel and aluminum, while the seats of the same material will not reach any additional right … so sometimes we can have surprises.”
“As soon as there is no freedom to play in speed, it is possible to play in the category to which the product belongs, abounds in Najat Akodad. For example, choosing to export the raw material instead of a finished product, so that the product is finally transformed into the US soil.”
A way to relocate part of production in the American continent, and to some extent to demonstrate the reindustrialization strategy claimed by Donald Trump.
Another option is to play with value, reduce it in particular with the American “first sale” mechanism, which is no longer used in the European Union. This assessment method allows you to import a property based on the price of the initial transaction during a sales chain with several intermediaries instead of the total value paid by the importer to the final seller.
Change the manufacturing and distribution scheme
For the lawyer at the Marseille bar, the other option is to play in customs origin.
Elections that are not just adjustments and impose on companies to review their manufacturing strategy and distribution scheme. And that are not accessible to certain sectors, including agribusiness. Vin and alcohol producers cannot play in the transformation of the raw material or at the origin of the product.
For certain industries or categories of products, such as semiconductors or pharmacy, there is still some hope. Because decisions are not yet frozen. In any case, companies expect a route covered with difficulties, between the review of their distribution scheme, the management of their industrial footprint, the strict negotiations with their intermediaries. Things that are not during the night. “In this problematic period, they must accelerate decision making in business, give more votes to support functions, give more space to the instructions of the supply chain,” recommends the prosecutor’s CEO.
“Customers wake up, but it is also the time of summer holidays, Najat Akodad smiles. Some factories are inactive, there are arrested production sites …”. Structuring decisions will wait for the return of the holidays.
Source: BFM TV
