Constitutional Counsel of France confirms 50% fine for issuing fictitious invoices

Did you know what are fictitious invoices? Fictitious invoices are invoices issued when no goods and services mentioned in the invoice are provided, or when the identity of the seller or the buyer is disguised or hidden, in other words, certain mandatory identification elements are missing from the invoice.

The Constitutional Counsel of France upheld the 50% fine for issuance of fictitious invoices as prescribed in Article 1737 of the CGI.

The mentioned article provides for the fine of 50% of the sum stated in the fictitious invoice.

The Constitutional Counsel found the fine to be valid, because invoices are issued in B2B transactions within the scope of their regular commercial activity, and thus fake invoices by nature have an intentional character.  By sanctioning breaches of invoicing rules with a tax fine, the legislator intended to punish behavior aimed at hindering the control of the accounts of both the seller and the buyer of a product or a service and, on the other hand, to improve tax collection and combat tax fraud.

In contrast, in a decision published in April, the Counsel found that a 50% fine in case of an absence of an invoice is not constitutional.