In more detail
In this case, the taxpayer, a French tax resident for the years in question in 2017 and 2018, had reported in his income tax return in France the salaries derived from his activity as Chairman and CEO of a French company. Arguing that he exercised, for a substantial part, his duties from an office located in London, he considered that his activity should be considered as exercised in the United Kingdom within the meaning of Article 15 of the double tax treaty between France and the United Kingdom, and had thus requested, by way of a claim, the benefit of a tax credit in France.
The Tax Court of Paris, based on a detailed analysis of the facts, had judged that the very frequent presence of the applicant in London "constitutes only a modality of the exercise by the interested party of his corporate mandate, and is not dissociable from it, in the sense that it does not allow to consider that the exercise of his corporate mandate to be dissociated from the activity of the teams present at the Paris headquarters of the group" and that it "relates more to a matter of personal convenience than to a proven professional imperative". Furthermore, the public rapporteur had considered that "exercising a job in a contracting state" within the meaning of Article 15 of the double tax treaty between France and the United Kingdom is understood "as the fact of exercising an employment which missions are inseparable from the state of activity", and he emphasized in this regard that "remote work is only a modality of exercising the employment, a circumstance without impact on its actual place of exercise and on its taxation".
By its decision of 11 April 2025, the Tax Court of Appeal of Paris confirms the position of the Administrative Court by considering that the taxpayer "cannot be regarded as having exercised his employment as a corporate officer of this company elsewhere than in France". The Court notably considers that could not be taken into account, to determine the place of exercise of the taxpayer's corporate mandate, the presence of 193 days in 2017 and 207 days in 2018 in London, the availability of a professional office in London and his personal assistant, the presence of his deputy general manager, or the exercise of fifteen other corporate mandates, including three in London, and that these elements do not allow "London to be regarded as having been the place of exercise of his duties as a corporate officer".
The conclusions of the public rapporteur are not public at this stage, but it will be interesting to observe if the reasoning followed was identical - which seems all the more likely given the decision of the Tax Court of Appeal.
The decision of the Tax Court triggers many interrogations, but its confirmation by the Tax Court of Appeal of Paris raises even more questions about its impact on corporate officers exercising their corporate mandate from abroad. Would the position have been identical if the taxpayer had demonstrated a more anchored activity in the United Kingdom? On the contrary, will France have the same reading vis-à-vis non-tax resident corporate officers? For situations of corporate officers having distinct functions in different countries, the opportunity of the split contract could be reviewed for this type of profile, in order to anticipate the distribution of the right to tax in the different states.
