Proving you are square with the tax office

A cleaning company wins a public contract worth 84 000 €. It has forty-eight hours to produce two certificates. The first takes three clicks from its professional online space — except that the screen answers it is unavailable. Before you read on: what closes that online service, and what is the other route?

Two routes depending on the tax regime

The certificate is obtained directly online, from the professional space, by businesses subject to corporation tax and liable to VAT. The path runs through the tax account consultation menu, then through the entry devoted to the certificate.

Businesses subject to income tax, including sole proprietorships, use form 3666-SD, sent to the business tax office through the secure messaging of the professional space.

The document issued online bears the stamp of the managing office. It is accepted by all the administrations that ask for it, and in particular when public contracts are awarded, with no further step.

Once issued, the certificate can be saved and reissued as many times as needed during the year. Nothing requires one request per recipient: it is the same document, in electronic form.

What it attests, and on what date

The certificate is issued only if the business is up to date with its filing and payment obligations. The two conditions add up: filing without paying is not enough, and paying without filing is not either.

The form states the field covered: payment of VAT and of income tax or corporation tax. It is the regularity of the tax position in the sense of those taxes, not a general discharge.

The assessment date matters as much as the content. The position of the business is assessed as close as possible to the day of the request, that is on the last day of the month preceding the issue of the certificate.

A business that puts things right on the 3rd of the month therefore obtains a certificate that still reflects the previous month. Anticipating by a few weeks avoids discovering that effect the day before a tender is due.

• Who asks for it: the business itself, from its own professional online space or through its secure messaging.
• What it proves: that returns have been filed and that the amounts due for VAT and for tax on profits have been paid.
• What it does not prove: social compliance, which belongs to the vigilance certificate, nor the absence of any dispute.
• Who it serves: public buyers, grant bodies, buyers of a business, partners who require dated evidence of standing.

The document stays a snapshot, not a subscription. Nothing forbids issuing a new one each month, and it is often useful: a March certificate says nothing about the position in June, and a demanding buyer will ask for a recent one.

When the online service closes

Several circumstances close the online route without closing the right to the certificate: an earlier failure to file or to pay, court-supervised recovery proceedings, a safeguard plan, a conciliation, or pending litigation.

In those cases the business asks for its certificate by completing form 3666-SD and sending it to its managing office through secure messaging. The office reviews it, and issues the certificate where the position allows.

A payment plan granted by the commission of heads of financial services does not block issue. A certificate may be issued to a business that benefits from one: what counts as compliance is that the plan is being met, not the absence of debt.