https://www.proz.com/kudoz/english-to-french/law-taxation-customs/5234900-sales-tax.html
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Business privilege tax
few if any

Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

Sales tax

French translation:

taxe de vente

Added to glossary by CommonParlance
Jun 11, 2013 12:25
10 yrs ago
31 viewers *
English term

Sales tax

English to French Bus/Financial Law: Taxation & Customs in a Front End Engineering Design Services Contract
"The Company shall advise the Contractor if the Company and/or the Contractor are exempt from stamp taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, use or compensating taxes, and/or value added taxes that might otherwise be imposed in respect of the Work or this Contract."

I found that "sales tax" is defined as a "tax payable on each item sold due when the purchase transaction is completed imposed as a percentage of the price of the goods" and can be translated as "taxe sur le chiffre d'affaires". Can "sales tax" be understood as "turnover tax"? Thanking you in advance for your feedback.
Proposed translations (French)
3 +4 taxe de vente
5 taxe de transmission
3 taxe à l'achat
Change log

Jun 11, 2013 13:37: writeaway changed "Field" from "Law/Patents" to "Bus/Financial" , "Field (specific)" from "Law: Contract(s)" to "Law: Taxation & Customs"

Jun 12, 2013 08:58: writeaway changed "Field (write-in)" from "Front End Engineering Design Services Contract" to "in a Front End Engineering Design Services Contract"

Discussion

CommonParlance (asker) Jun 12, 2013:
Thank you all for your contributions. I am told that the document is a draft and will be subject to revisions.
AllegroTrans Jun 12, 2013:
But is it a foreign concept.... ....given that French is an official language of Algeria? It strikes me that the drafter of this document may not be au fait with Algerian taxation and was using "foreign" (i.e. British or American) terms.....needs some thinking about
ViBe Jun 12, 2013:
Sales tax vs. VAT The reason why “sales tax” and “VAT” are used in the same sentence may have to do with the fact that our Contractor operates in various jurisdictions, thus being subject to all these and many other taxes. But again, this is irrelevant to what the Asker is looking for: a translation of a term describing a foreign concept.
AllegroTrans Jun 12, 2013:
Or has it been written by a lawyer who knows nothing of the Algerian tax system?
You need to consider this carefully, asker
writeaway Jun 12, 2013:
Is it Algerian English?? Is the English based on Algerian law??
CommonParlance (asker) Jun 12, 2013:
Hello AllegroTrans and Tony M, this is taken from a Front-End Engineering Design Services Contract for a project in Algeria (all the names of the various parties are crossed out)
Tony M Jun 12, 2013:
@ ViBe I'm sorry, but I very strongly disagree; sales tax and VAT are NOT exactly the same thing, as is made clear in Asker's source text, which lists BOTh 'sales tax' AND 'value added taxes'.

And as I have already been at pains to explain at length, 'turnover tax' is something quite different again; please can you provide any refs. at all to support the idea that 'turnover tax' is the same as 'sales tax' (other than where it means 'a tax on (a company's overall) sales')?

From Wikipedia:

"A turnover tax is similar [my italics] to a sales tax or a VAT, with the difference that it taxes intermediate and possibly capital goods. It is an indirect tax, typically on an ad valorem basis, applicable to a production process or stage. For example, when manufacturing activity is completed, a tax may be charged on some companies. Sales tax occurs when merchandise has been sold.

In South Africa, the turnover tax is a simple tax on the gross income of small businesses. Businesses who elect to pay the turnover tax are exempt from VAT. Turnover tax is at a very low rate compared to most taxes, but it is calculated on gross income without any deductions."
ViBe Jun 12, 2013:
Sales tax/VAT/turnover tax = the exact same tax... … (nature-wise) viewed from different perspectives (buyer’s vs. seller’s), hence the different names. :)
But this discussion, I'm afraid, hardly helps our Asker to translate what seems to be a cultural specificity of the US tax system. I’d suggest going with Merline’s option (only changing the preposition “de” with “sur” as here http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxe_sur_la_vente) and, perhaps, adding a short (translator’s) footnote explaining the cultural differences to the Francophone readership...
Tony M Jun 12, 2013:
@ ViBe Even though US 'sales tax' is something similar to VAT, I don't see how one could ever describe this as 'turnover tax' — which would describe the overall tax on a company based on its annual turnover.
ViBe Jun 11, 2013:
the Asker is right: Sales tax IS turnover tax. "Sales tax" is the US version of VAT, which is an indirect tax on consumption.
AllegroTrans Jun 11, 2013:
And which country are we referring to here please? essential context!!
Tony M Jun 11, 2013:
'sales tax' AFAIK, 'taxe sur le chiffre d'affaires' would be a mistranslation of 'sales tax' as applied in normal (usually retail) contexts; that would represent a tax on sales / turnover.

I wouldn't worry, therefore, about that, but go on searching for the right term — assuming the definition you found does indeed correspond to your context (which I believe it does); in the UK, this kind of 'sales tax' used to be called 'purchase tax', so that might possibly be another avenue for research?

Proposed translations

+4
43 mins
Selected

taxe de vente

droits de timbre, taxe de vente, taxe d'accise, taxes compensatoires...
Peer comment(s):
agree Germaine : D'un bout à l'autre!
1 hr
Merci Germaine!
agree Premium✍️
3 hrs
agree GILLES MEUNIER
4 hrs
agree Jean-Claude Gouin : Il y a longtemps que nous nous sommes vus ...
6 hrs
Oui, ça fait un bail... :)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Many thanks for your contributions."
4 days

taxe de transmission

"Taxes de vente" is not really a technical term in tax law. Both Sales Tax and VAT are mentioned separately in the sentence because they are different types of taxes. The VAT system in Europe replaced the Sales Tax system ( known as Taxes de transmission in French) which worked like a cascade of taxes on sales without the right to offset input tax, which is the case with VAT. For the record the all-inclusive general but technical term is " taxe sur le chiffre d'affaire", not "taxe de vente"
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1 hr

taxe à l'achat

This is what R+C suggests for both 'sales tax' and 'purchase tax', and certainly corresponds to the definition you've found.


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Note added at 21 hrs (2013-06-12 09:59:17 GMT)
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R+C not surprisingly tends to be hotter on FR-FR terminology (though does include a few terms marked as 'Canada')

As I say, whether it's 'sales' or 'purchase' is the same issue between AE and BE — are we seeing it from the seller's or the buyer's POV?

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Note added at 4 days (2013-06-16 11:37:43 GMT) Post-grading
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To pick up on W/A's comment, I totally agree that it is unwise in the extreme to translate into anything other than ones native language, and so I might be regarded as presumptuous in even attempting to answer this question.

However, I was anxious above all to point out that this term, and it's BE equiavlent 'purchase tax' are both translated by Robert & Collins as 'taxe à l'achat'', while it does not have any FR > EN listing at all for 'taxe de vente'; it does suggest 'sales tax' as one possible approximate equivalent for 'taxe à ou sur la valeur ajoutée' — but since Asker's text already has 'value added tax', that is clearly not an option here.

Of course, R+C is not a monolingual dictionary, which is almost always a better authority; but I do find it odd that it doesn't even list 'taxe de vente' as one of the options, anywhere.

As I already stated above, ifeel sure this is above all a transatlantic difference — and apparently in both EN and FR.


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Note added at 4 days (2013-06-16 11:40:32 GMT) Post-grading
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'taxe à l'achat':

http://www.mydictionary.net/french/taxe à l'achat.html

There are a vastly greater number of 'taxe de vente' — but all of the examples on the first page of Google results do indeed come from Canada.
Peer comment(s):
agree writeaway : yup. that's the right spelling. In my dicos as well/good lesson why people should only translate into their native tongue and into fields they actually know. Our French colleagues agree with a different solution. shame on us......
28 mins
Thanks! Finger trouble again ;-)
neutral Germaine : la ou les taxes qu'on paie à l'achat (au Québec TPS (=TVA), TVQ; ailleurs au Canada TVH) sont communément nommées "taxes de vente"
59 mins
I think this is the same cross-the-pond difference as with AE sales tax / BE purchase tax. Remains to be seen where the target readership is?
disagree GILLES MEUNIER : sales = ventes
19 hrs
Yes, but that literal, word-for-word approach often leads to unsatisfactory translations; the fact is that 'sales tax' is known as 'purchase tax' in some conutries, and I believe this term is probably more common in FR-FR; one can't just ignore R+C.
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