09:08 Mar 4, 2011 

But as I was seeking to point out, these payments are not 'prélèvements' as such, but payments that you have to take the initiative to send, hence why I used 'voluntary' in quotes!

Anyway, we're wasting our time here, since we now know that my auto-entrepreneur idea was a red herring anyway :-(

08:58 Mar 4, 2011 

Agreed, your autoentrepreneur receipts spend some time in your bank account before you have to remit the tax due on them. But not much time, and paying the tax is not voluntary. What was voluntary was opting for the PL regime in the first place.
The tax is still considered a 'prélèvement à la source', I suppose because the gross receipts (rather than the payers of them) are the source.

08:34 Mar 4, 2011 

Yes, but it's hardly 'witholding', surely, since it is in fact a 'voluntary' payment that you make proactively?

In any case, this seems not to be Asker's context anyway ;-)

08:29 Mar 4, 2011 

It's true that the PL autoentrepreneur is not exactly a withholding tax, but it's the next best thing from the standpoint of the fisc: it's a flat-rate tax you pay monthly or quarterly on *gross receipts*, before you even know whether you will make a profit or a loss. Much more likely to be tax on "savings income".

15:58 Mar 3, 2011 

Tony, no way to know if this is an "autoentrepreneur" but the income does exceed 25K euros. Thanks

08:26 Mar 3, 2011 

Do you know if this person has the status of an 'autoentrepreneur' (assuming, of course, that this is actually in FR)?

The reason I ask is that there is a special tax scheme available for autoentrepreneurs, which might apply here and could possibly change the translation.

If the answer isn't obvious, then you may be able to deduce it from other information on the tax form — in particular, if the tax household's income exceeds (roughly!) 25k / person, then they wouldn't be eligible for it anyway.