Choice of home seller status

You have chosen to distribute your products or services by using a network of independent sellers at home (Article L. 135-1 of the Commercial Code).

You determined whether this home seller would be:

• Buyer and reseller of your products;

• Intermediary (see our services to help you choose the most suitable intermediary contract).

You must ensure the attractiveness of your business model to maximize the sustainability of the relationship with your home sellers.

You wonder about their tax and social status, which will directly determine their net income, which is the key to this attractiveness.

This involves following analysis steps that will allow us to define which tax and social security regime is applicable.

We must first ensure that your business meets the definition of home selling. Canvassing at home:

• consists of offering a customer products or services in a place that is not usually intended for commerce: home or workplace in particular;

• puts the seller and customer in physical contact.

We must then analyze your contracts and processes to ensure that your home seller is independent, the seller’s tax and social status resulting from this independence. We therefore verify the absence of a relationship of subordination and criteria for reclassification of his distribution contract as an employment contract.

Third, we examine whether the independent home seller has entered into a contract with you:

• VDI proxy,

• Buyer-dealer VDI.

The income of the home seller has a different nature depending on the VDI contract selected:

• the VDI agent takes orders in the name and on behalf of your company, which remains the owner of its stocks, and receives commissions on the turnover it brings,

• the buyer-reseller VDI, as its name suggests, buys a stock of product from your company and resells it to its customers: it sets the selling price itself (within the possible limit of a maximum recommended selling price) and makes a margin

As a fourth step, we are developing a guide for your independent home sellers so that they know:

• how to declare their activity to register, which will allow you to benefit from a presumption of non-salaried employment, and which will allow them to be known by the tax services and the social funds as self-employed, then that they know how to declare their income;

• what their tax and social security system will be;

• what the reporting obligations will be.

This guide is a tool for attracting your network: it helps support the VDI and participates in their decision to join and stay in the direct sales network.

Registration of the VDI

The independent home seller (VDI) must declare his activity online on the business formalities counter, no later than 15 days after the start of his activity.

The independent home seller must register with the Trade and Companies Register (RCS) or the Special Register of Commercial Agents (RSAC), if he meets the following two cumulative conditions:

• 3 subsequent calendar years

For each of these years, it generated an annual gross income of more than €23,184 (threshold in force in 2024).

The choice of register is guided by the nature of the contract concluded with the direct sales company (buyer/reseller or agent).

• VDI buyer-reseller (or intermediary, but not under the regime of commercial agents): RCS,

• VDI agent (under the commercial agent regime): RASC.

From its registration, the independent home seller:

• is taxed as a self-employed person;

• depends on the scheme for self-employed workers (TNS).

Taxation of the VDI

The independent home seller is subject to income tax (IR).

He can never benefit from the auto-entrepreneur scheme.

On the other hand, they can benefit from micro-benefit schemes for the taxation of their income. For this, it must not exceed the legal thresholds, namely:

• €188,700 turnover for buyers/resellers,

• €77,000 for intermediaries (2024 thresholds).

The method of taxation varies according to the type of seller (agent or buyer-reseller):

• the buyer-reseller VDI is taxed in the category of industrial and commercial profits (BIC) and its revenues are taxed, under the micro-enterprise regime, after a 71% reduction for lump-sum charges at the progressive scale of the IR.

• the VDI agent is taxed in the category of non-commercial profits (BNC) and its revenues are taxed, under the micro-enterprise regime, after a 34% deduction for fixed charges at the progressive scale of the IR.

If it is above the thresholds that allow it to benefit from the micro-taxation regime, its expenses are deducted in real terms according to its legal status according to the rules of the BNC or BIC.

The independent home seller can benefit from the VAT-based Franchise if his turnover in the previous year (N-1) is less than the following amount:

• €91,900 for a buyer/reseller

• €36,800 for an agent (thresholds 2024)

In this case, it does not charge VAT but does not deduct any VAT. As a formal condition of benefiting from this basic deductible, all purchase orders, invoices and withholding tax slips issued by the independent home seller must bear the mention “  VAT not applicable, article 293 B of the CGI ”.

The independent home seller must finally pay the CFE only if the annual gross income from his VDI activity is greater than €7,651.

Social security scheme and contributions of the independent home seller

Social regime: 2

The social regime of the independent home seller (VDI) varies depending on whether or not it is registered in a professional register.

With regard to social security, the independent home seller is treated as an employee and depends on the general social security system if he is not registered with the RCS or the RASC. They then benefit from a flat-rate allowance of 10% for the calculation of the basis of their contributions. The VDI does not contribute to unemployment insurance and therefore does not receive this social benefit. It is the direct sales company that declares and pays the social security contributions every quarter in this case.

As soon as he is registered, he becomes a self-employed worker. The method of calculating social security contributions varies according to the amount of gross income per quarter.