Micro enterprise for English pensioners

I have to say I am surprised by one of the points Anna made above, which is at odds with my own experience and the official information I was given.
IF your pension in the UK is already taxed at source — which it usually is, as they are extremely reluctant to let anyone get out of paying their UK Income Tax! — then it will NOT be taxed in France as well! BUT any such “already-taxed” income still has to be declared in a specific part of your Tax Return, as it WILL be taken into account when calculating your overall tax liability / personal allowance.

1 Like

Surely only ‘Government’ pensions are liable for tax in the U.K. Tax is paid in France on OAP and private pensions paid in the U.K.

And yet, Anna’s advice is excellent as far as I am concerned. You do have to declare every single bit of income, if you live in France. France is a hugely expensive place to start a business. A limited company in the U.K cost about £15, whereas and including the “stages”, it can cost a fortune in France. In France you pay for TVA (VAT) from euro 1 in the UK it was 75K (do correct me, as it’s been a while). The RSI costs a fortune, also. I am self-employed in France, however and if I was new, I would never advise anyone to start a business unless he/she had a minimum of guaranteed clients and minimum of a guaranteed future income. Yes, I know, who gets guarantees? I’ve been working with the same clients for many years; so, I’m incredibly lucky.

Tread carefully!

1 Like

David… this is how things work for us:

OAP must be declared (+ all income), but France makes allowance for UK income tax paid, when working things out.

French Social Charges are NOT applied to OAP but are applied on investment incomes. (allowance is made when the FSG is deducted at source)

does this help

I was questioning Tony Marsden’s comment that most pensions are taxed in the UK. That is not true.

Aha … sorry David… I see what you mean…

As other posters have confirmed. Where each pension is taxed is decided by the tax treaty between the countries concerned and depends on the source of the pension. You say “IF your pension in the UK is already taxed at source — which it usually is, as they are extremely reluctant to let anyone get out of paying their UK Income Tax!” - IF is indeed the operative word, and neither you nor the UK have any discretion over this, everyone has to abide by the treaty. In the case of UK pensions paid to French taxpayers, the age pension/UK state retirement pension or whatever you call it, is taxable in France if you’re tax resident in France, no two ways about that. Government pensions are taxable in the UK, most teaching pensions are taxable in the UK, but the devil is in the detail. I take it you are not yet in receipt of your OAP, otherwise if you are and you’re paying tax on it in the UK, something is wrong and needs sorting out.
However I don’t actually recall saying anything about income tax did I, because healthcare and S1s and suchlike that have been discussed in this thread have no effect on the dual tax treaty. I did refer to CSG liability, which is affected by whether or not you have an S1, ie if you have an S1 you have exemptions that you will lose if you start paying cotisations to RSI and lose your right to an S1.

Why are you putting someone else’s words into my mouth? Especially as they are the very words that I was disagreeing with in the first place!

Sorry my bad, I didn’t mean to reply to you David, I meant to reply to Tony Marsden. Having two “Reply” buttons confuses me - I know one’s blue and one isn’t which is probably meant to help, but Reply, to me, means Reply, and I tend not to think beyond the one word.
@James - could the button that directs a reply to a specific poster be called something like “reply to this poster”, just as an extra prod for technophobe dimwits like me?

2 Likes

But you know now! :slight_smile:

Ha ha… that’s got me sorted out then… too…:grin:

1 Like

I know if I stop to think :slight_smile: but I don’t always stop to think. The problem is James that if you read a post that isn’t the last post on the thread, and you want to answer it, then the grey Reply button is the only one you can see. You don’t see the blue Reply button unless you scroll down to the last post on the thread.

Sorry, this is all horribly off the topic of micro entreprise for English pensioners so by all means delete it… AFTER you’ve read it and decided whether I have a point or not :stuck_out_tongue:

1 Like

Yes, indeed. Thank you for tge reply.