Antoine PUJO

Tuesday, 6 September 2016

Chapter 1 — Craftspersons & Merchants

Craftspersons and merchants have some common points, but there is a huge difference between
them: taxes are different. Merchants pay more taxes than craftspersons. The NRS/IRS will then try to
transform craftspersons into machines.

A craftspersons is considered as a civil person: they are ruled by civil law, and if there is a specific
civil court for a case, they will be judged in this court.

A merchant is is considered as a business person: they are ruled by business law, and they will be
judged by a business court.

Part 1: Common Points between Craftspersons and Merchants

1.1 — Independence

It means that you work on your own, you work for yourself, not for someone else. If you work for a
company, you are not dependent (neither if your work for your parents). So an employee can’t be an
craftspersons or a merchant. You are not employee.

1.2 — Regular Basis

We use the reasonable man standard, to know if it is normal to do this in once life. It depends on how
many times you have done that, and how you do it. If you sell cookies every years during a week, it
is on a regular basis. If you sell your house once, you don’t do it on a regular basis.

1.3 — Autonomous

You do not rely on someone else’s kindness (no one gives you money or you don’t give money –
even with your family). You’re alone, working for yourself. Money always excludes kindness.

If one IRA is missing, this person is not considered as a merchant or a craftspersons.

However, some people cannot become merchants or craftspersons. It is the case when you are a civil
servant (you work for the state) or if you work for an order. Lawyers and doctors are not merchants
or craftspersons, even if IRA, because there is an order (lawyers’ order and doctors’ order). Same for
notaries, nurses, architects. They are so considered as liberals, or something else like nothing
(unemployed, student).
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Tuesday, 6 September 2016

Part 2: Craftspersons

A craftspersons has ​one ​notion being essential: “know-how”. If you don’t have “know- how” you
can’t be a craftspersons. It is defined as knowledge gained through experience. It means that he does
what he does in a specific way. It can be seen thanks to (1) touch, you can make differences between
two products (it is specific) or (2) imprint (stronger than touch, you know who is behind).

Part 3: Merchants

Being a merchant prevails of being anything else. If you behave like a merchant while being a
craftspersons, you are a merchant. If you behave like a lawyer while being a merchant, you are a
merchant.

You are merchant when you do acts of merchants (French commercial court). But you have different
ways of becoming a merchant, depending on what you do and what you sell.

• To buy in order to sell: if you do so on a regular basis, you are considered as a merchant. Quantities
will be used in order to know. If you buy three phones each weeks to sell them, it is on a regular
basis, and there is the reasonable man standard here (other purpose than using it).

• To represent a company: you are considered as merchant if you represent a company on a regular
basis, and you are not employed by this company (CEO represent but is not employed — same for
the stakeholders, etc.).

• By being a middle-person: the person in the middle of a transaction, that allows the buyer and the
seller to meet because a deal can be made (Tinder is a middle-person between two single persons).

• By signing a bill of exchange: with two sides: (1) one with the amount, debtor, creditor, date, and
signature of the debtor; (2) one with the creditor’s signature. The bill of exchange can be paid ​only
after 3 months (after the signature date). But if the creditor needs money before these three months,
he has the possibility to sell the bill of exchange to a third one. Every creditor involved in this bill of
exchange can resell it, but there then is ​joint liability ​between creditors, but each debtor owes the
whole amount. The creditor can ask any of the other creditor above him, but each creditor can do it
also because of the SLA (Subrogatory Legal Action). If you sign more than one bill of exchange on a
regular basis, you are considered as a merchant. If a craftsperson signs a bill of exchange every week,
he is now considered as a merchant.

• By speculating: you can speculate on different things: (1) on workforce: if you have more than 11

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employees you can speculate. If you have between 1 and 7 employee, you can’t speculate. And if you
have between 7 and 11 you can’t know, and it depends on the reasonable man standard; (2) on
machine: a machine does the work for you (but taxi is a tool, not a machine); (3) on raw materials:
because you are not selling them the way you bought it, you can speculate on raw materials.