New Tax on gite

We have a small 1 bed gite and were told by the tax office that we’d have to pay Taxe Professional. Breathed a sigh of relief when that tax was abolished last year only to gasp in despair when an even bigger bill arrived for the replacement tax called ‘cotisation fonciere des enterprises’ (based on a combination of income and value of gite). Have any other gite owners received a demand for this? The local tourist offcie say ours is the only gite paying it and that it’s because we registered with the chamber of commerce. We had no choice. The Tax Office made us do so. What’s worse is that the bill (312 euros for 2010) is after a 50% discount for the first year so will be over 600 next year. With that and the new taxe de sejour that we now have to charge everyone I wonder if it’s worth it

I don’t know the answer, but I bet Valerie at http://www.startbusinessinfrance.com/ will :slight_smile:

Know the feeling! We were also made to obtain star rating via local tourist office (who, I must say, not only did it pretty quickly but gave us 3 stars and sent us lots of business). They are definitely on our side. Even trying to help us with this tax thing and calling les impots to protest on our behalf. Now they’re submitting details of our plight to regional level with a promise that if necessary, it will end upon Mr Sarkozy’s desk!! Suggest you try your local office de T and explain that you can’t afford to wait long for classification. Makes me think that those of us who are honest pay the price.

I am totally and utterly baffled, confused, annoyed, fed up and had enough with the bureaucratic french rules regarding the gites!

I used to run gites and just declared on my tax impot once a year perfect, then for personal reasons I did not continue from 2009, but have now decided to just rent out my 2 bed gite this year, so went to the Marie, as you have to register with them just so they know who is letting where, gave them my form duly filled in, and just needed them to 'cachet' it, but the woman said to me you have to be categorised! I said well I understand you don't need to she said ooh yes you do! bearing in mind other mairies don't bother, ours require it! now I understand that you may have to wait god knows how many months for them to come, theres nowhere local that does this, and pay for the pleasure! you are not meant to start letting until you are categorised so of course you lose your summer revenue, so whats the point!

Others have told me I have to have a siret no, need an accountant and so it goes on, someone else has said to me just go ahead and just pay on your tax impot, like you Dorothy I think is it all worthwhile!! I am tempted to just go ahead and let as I need the income, surely it makes sense otherwise I will have to grovel for help from the government financially so surely if they let us rent and they will get their share as well!

Sorry about the rant but I really have had enough of it all, as indeed I'm sure you have Dorothy along with lots of others!

We didn’t register with C of C (at least not knowingly) but somehow ended up with a siret number. Perhaps this is the key as we may not need one. Think it will be difficult to de-register though will look into it. Reading Jon’s comments another factor maybe that we don’t pay taxe d’habitation on the gite as it has its own address (it’s next door to our home). If they don’t get you one way they get you another. Thanks for your input.

We had a similar problem with the tax office when we first registered. Fortunately the Chambre de commerce told us that it was totally unnecessary to register with them and that we should have a micro BIC tax regime which has proved to be not too bad. The tax officer took a lot of persuading and send us down to see the lady at the payments desk who knew that we didn’t have to register (only with the marie) and so it was sorted. I just hope it stays this way! We find this a much better system than the latest auto entrepreneur one as well.