train Tickets, bitcoins, bank accounts online... And soon to be taxes, bills, creche, canteen or hospital. The tobacconist on the corner now offers much more than the usual lotto ticket and pack of cigarettes. On 24 July, the minister of the public accounts Gérard Darmanin stated that the taxpayers may pay their tax not covered by withholding at the source at a retail outlet from 1 July 2020, and from 1 January in 18 departments test. The 4700 contact points of the vicinity (distributed in 3400 common - including 1600, where the general Direction of public finance is not present) offer this service to their customers.

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Our taxes are not the first products in to the account of the State as tobacconists offer. Because by signing the contract of stewardship, the retail outlet becomes a "servant of the administration", which allows to sell tobacco and products tax for the account of the State. This was also the case vignettes automobiles until 2000.

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Product tax and postage stamps

similarly, in agreement with the association of mayors of France in 2017, many tobacconists provide forms of passport, identity card, application of state civil... access is facilitated by opening hours are more extensive than those of a village hall.

This movement accompanies the slow dematerialization of services of the State, particularly in rural areas. The State has planned to cut 15,000 civil service posts to national and 70,000 in the territorial communities in the course of the quinquennium. If Emmanuel Macron has promised to bring to 2000 the number of houses of public services (which are currently 1340), toilettées for the occasion in "maisons de France", the office of tobacco monte also in grade.

Sign that the trend is on the increase, the SNCF has planned to allow tobacconists to sell train tickets and TER to counterbalance the closure of the stations, and therefore cash, in the rural areas.

Yoghurt, scooters and undertaker

In fact, the diversification of the activities of the tobacconists is necessary to ensure the survival of a network affected by a decline in sales of cigarettes. Today, almost all of the profession offers much more than the triptych loto-press-tobacco. We may as well buy its yogurt as a mobile phone reconditioned or postcards at the same time as a ham butter.

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In the city center of small towns and in rural areas, the supply of tobacco shops has been considerably expanded in recent years: bar-restaurant, grocery stores, independent or under from major retailers, deposit bread, relay post office, shoe repair, bike repair, scooter rental, opening bank accounts online...

Some take the opportunity to cultivate their passion. "One of my colleagues in the department of Oise sells abbey beers, another in the Corrèze improvised wine", shows Bernard Gasq, president of the region Île-de-France to the Confederation of tobacconists. Yet another has set his sights on the undertaker.

No salvation without diversification

"No salvation without diversification," sums up Thierry Lefebvre, chairman of the federation of tobacconists in Haut-Rhin that is specialized in the electronic cigarette. The free fall in sales of tobacco is the main responsible of this conversion by forced marches.

"I've lost 80% of my volume of sales of tobacco in 15 years," says the tobacconist, then they attracted 50% of my clientele." Its customers now prefer to procure in Germany, where the tobacco is less expensive. In early January, Logista, the provider of the quasi-totality of the points of sale of tobacco, indicated that the number of cigarettes delivered to tobacconists decreased by 9.3% in 2018. The tobacco still represents today between 60% and 80% of the revenue for tobacconists.

to Focus some State services could bring in new clients and more regular to bring it to consume. "We are all traders", says Philippe Coy, the national president of the confederation of tobacconists. Other initiatives, public and private, as well as to develop the supply of snacks and make the mutation of the cards are grey, are in the pipes.

Date Of Update: 26 July 2019, 00:00