France’s CNC plans to extend levy to Netflix thanks to VAT change

France’s Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée (CNC), which collects and administers the funds levied on broadcasters and distributors to support content creation in France, plans to extend its 2% levy to Netflix on the back of the Europe-wide change in VAT rules set to come into effect next year.

According to French newspaper Le Figaro, the CNC has extended the content support levy to video-on-demand and SVoD operators delivering services to France that are based abroad. The move follows the OECD’s internet commerce-focused decision to oblige companies to declare VAT in the country in which goods are consumed rather than those in which they are based. This will enable the CNC to calculate revenues raised in France by foreign-based companies including Netflix.

French media companies have protested vociferously about the inequality of treatment between those based in France and those outside, which previously could expect to escape the content support levy.

Separately, speculation is mounting in France that Bouygues Telecom could break with other ISPs by including Netflix on its new generation of TV boxes after a demonstration of the new device, dubbed ‘Miami’, included the US-based SVoD service’s app onscreen.

The Android-based next-generation Bbox will include the Google Play Store among its onscreen apps.

Other French service providers including Orange and Free have so far declined to add Netflix to their services when it launches. SFR, which also had deployed an Android-based box, has yet to declare but has been expected to follow suit, thanks in part to its close relations with former sister company Canal+.