According to French Tax Authorities, the right to use a .fr domain name assigned by the French Regulation Authority is an intangible asset.
In a decision dated February 9, 2012, the Tribunal Administratif de Montreuil (administrative court of Montreuil) ruled for the first time on the fiscal nature of domain names, in a case involving auction site eBay.
The company eBay France is the holder of the ebay.fr domain name assigned by the French Regulation Authority (AFNIC) registry. This domain name is made available to the parent company eBay International AG, without eBay France receiving royalties in return. eBay International AG only reimbursed the fees paid for registering the domain name.
During an inspection by the French Tax Authorities, the domain name was reinstated in the balance sheet of the French company as part of its intangible assets and the court confirms this interpretation.
The rest of this article is locked for subscribers only. Please login to continue reading.
If you don't have a login, you will need to purchase a subscription to gain access to this article, including all our online content. Please use this link and follow the steps.
For multi-user price options, or to check if your company has an existing subscription to us that we can add you to for FREE, please email Atif Choudhury at achoudhury@worldipreview.com
AFNIC, TLDs, eBay
