We moved to France July 2016 and were advised that the quickest way to get a Social Security number and into the French Health system, was to go down the auto Entreprenuer route and rgister with RSI. We did this and are now registered with the RSI and use ViaSante as our insurance interface.
We are now required to submit the Declaration Trimestrielle De Chiffre D’affaires form.
We are trying to start a Gite business but it has so far yielded 0 income.
Do we need to continue to be registered with the RSI as AE’s if our income is not going to be substantial? Could be cancel this AE registration and just go into the standard French Sociual System now?
Are there any advantages or disadvantages from taking this action?
Before I do I need to now if there could be any negative consequences.
The primary reason we took the AE route in the first place was because our youngest daughter is severely disabled and need regular hospital visits and very expensive medicines every day.
We need to make sure that this does not stop or that we would have to pay for it (we could not do this).
Is there an English speaking Tax advisor who could help us and not charge us a fortune for giving us some advice?
If you are running a business you should be registered as a business.
If you are not running a business you should not be registered as a business.
Obviously it makes a difference, but it’s hard to know what else to say, really. Dare I say it but it’s not supposed to be about doing whatever happens to look most advantageous to you, it’s supposed to be about taking the appropriate/correct steps according to your situation. Pretending run a business that doesn’t actually exist, purely in order to get expensive healthcare without having to contribute… no, sorry, don’t get me started.
But it is a business with 2 gites.
We took it over from the previous house owner.
We are intending to continue.
BUT - currently we do not have bookings.
I just asked in genuine honesty if we have a choice to operate as AE’s and pay tax or operate as privat individuals and declare tax earned on the gite business as and when we get income.
Are there any advantages to either situation? Or conversely disadvantages?
I am not trying to beat the system or cheat it.
I am near pensionable age and can quite easily wait for this to happen.
It is my poor unfortunate daughter who cannot.
You have taken a big step by moving to France and I presume you planned, researched and prepared for your move. One of the requirements for being resident in France is to be covered for health care and you have opted into the Micro-Entrepreneur system to get cover. You say you bought a going concern but have you, in fact, bought nothing more than the potential for creating a business? I presume that you had no bookings for 2016 because you arrived mid way through the season and didn’t take on any bookings made through the previous owners. I also presume that as part of the going concern you were told how and where to advertise the business, that the adverts are in place and that you are awaiting your first bookings. If so you cannot expect any income until the season begins. Submit your declaration, chase the bookings and give your business a chance to get off the ground. You have obviously invested a lot of money in your project so I cannot understand why you are considering stopping the business before it has got going.
David - Our story is a sad one (maybe many are). The sellers of thge property and business changed the goalposts after I had paid the deposit and the 10 day cooling off period was over. I would have had to forfeit the deposit to pull out of the purchase, or so I was possoibly wrongly informed by a greedy Estate Agent. Recently I have been told this could have been grounds to pull out after the 10 days and recover my deposit. Always wise after the events. Long story short we cancelled thge 2016 bookings and tried to make a fresh start. We are advertising on TA. We are creating our own website. We are genuinely serious and not playing at it or trying to cheat anyone or any system.
I am genuinely trying find out if there are options and whether we can change from RSI and being AE’s to private citizens and paying our income taxes on any income earned on the gites (if and when we get some). Would we pay less tax and be under less pressure that is my simple question. We would have gone straight to CPAM in the first place but they informed us that we might have wait over 2 years for the system to process our application and as i say our youngest daughter needs contant expensive medical checks and medicine.
Simple question, doh, I don’t understand it.
What pressure do you feel you are under? What tax are you paying, presumably none if you have no income, so how can you pay less than none?
Your total worldwide household income is taken into account for income tax purposes. Without knowing what your worldwide income consists of, it’s impossible to suggest what might be the most tax efficient way of organising your affairs. If you have no income from any source or a very low income you will presumably pay no income tax regardless of how you arrange things, but, again presumably, you do have some kind of income albeit not from your gites.
Regarding the gites, whether or not that needs to be registered or not, depends on whether or not it’s your main source of income or whether it’s an ancillary income. If you have no other income then I guess any income you earn from your gite will make it your main income. Otherwise it depends on the actual turnover and what percentage of your total income it is, there is an exact percentage that is used as the criterion but I can’t remember what it is.
One thing you should perhaps be aware of is that if you close the micro entreprise now, you won’t be allowed to start another micro entreprise doing the same activity in the immediate future. You have to wait for a certain length of time, a kind of “garden leave”, can’t remember if it’s 1, 2 or 3 full calendar years.
Hope this helps.
There is a lady who runs a website called http://www.startbusinessinfrance.com/ , I think perhaps subscribing to her website might be a good investment if you want to find out the basics.
I see the OP hasn’t been back, maybe he will, maybe he won’t but maybe he’s still reading. A couple of things worried me about his first post, was hoping they might clarify as the “discussion” went on because it didn’t seem tactful to assume anything, but I did wonder if he has understood:
Firstly, that in signing up as a micro entreprise he took on various legal obligations, one of which is to make a declaration to URSSAF every quarter regardless of whether he has any income or not. The fact that he seems to be being asked to make a quarterly declaration now, in the middle of February, suggests to me that he’s missed a declaration deadline and is being chased. The deadlines for declaring are end of Jan - Apr - Jul - Oct. A penalty (50€? 90€?) is automatically applied every time you fail to submit your declaration by the deadline.
Secondly, that having a social security number doesn’t automatically mean that you are entitled to healthcare, so [quote=“gregca, post:1, topic:15053”]
just go into the standard French Sociual System
[/quote] is a bit meaningless. There is no ‘standard French Social Security System’ as such, entitlement to healthcare isn’t automatic just because you have a sécu number, there are different caisses and different routes to healthcare depending on your personal situation - retired on an S1, working, self employed, “legally resident” inactif and you need to qualify for one route or another. As an inactif he would need to submit his application for PUMA together with proof that he meets the residence criteria including sufficient income.
Maybe he’s fully aware of all this in which case apologies for telling him how to suck eggs, but from his posts, I thought maybe he sounded a bit at sea.
If you want to fill those gites for part of the summer you must get moving on promoting them.
It all depends on what type of gite it is.
Join up with “Lay my hat” it has a list of advertising sites and lots of help from
members is available.
It is a tough season ahead with the echoes of uncertainty and the pound is not so favourable.
So watch your pricing and choose your agents with care.
I found an accountant before we even moved to France.
He was very charming but he specialised in vineyards and I was not operating one.
I feel that it is a great help for me to have my accounts done for me each year…
even though mine are fairly lacking in complexity.
Where are you…just out of interest?
Anyone thinking of coming to France with a family member who needs for example “regular hospital visits and expensive medicines every day” … should either have sufficient resources already, to pay for such… or else be very sure of the financial and health support situation in France… before making any move !!
I believe that an underlying problem is that many Britons arriving in France have been advised that AE/ME is the answer to everything as it allows you to start earning money and enter the health system with little fuss and bother. The fact that it is often not fit for purpose seems irrelevant and that opens up a host of possibilities to criticise the system on online forums at a later date. In this example it appears that the need to enter the health system had precidence over needing a business regime to cope with the income from the going concern that they bought. The details of this situation are unknown but I know several early retirees who jumped into AE without any thought or research because others had sold it to them as being the loophole they needed. Only later did it dawn to them that they had taken on responsibilities at the same time. If the story told by the OP is true they have problems ahead, if it is trolling it makes a change from questions about registering cars or paying tax in the U.K.
Hi, I am asking on behalf of my brother he is an aspiring actor from the UK who has secured himself an agent in Paris and who wishes to cast him in some projects. She said he needs to get himself a social security number first though.
He is moving to Paris to work, effectively self-employed how does he go about registering online for the social security number? I can’t even find the right site that he needs to visit. What documentation does he also need to provide?
Many Thanks, apologies if an obvious question but I have been reading everything I can find on the topic but not the answer I am looking for!
