Hi Neil and thanks very much for that. Much appreciated. Hope the vernissage went well. Sheila
Further to this, I know someone who had a UK Ltd company as they lived between the UK and France. Having witnessed the visit to her home by the Gendarmes and the Fisc when someone reported her for 'travaux clandestine', I can assure everyone, it's not something you want happening to you. The UK company was all legit, tax paid, VAT etc, however the French are insistent that it is money earned in France and all dues must be paid in France. 20 months later, she is still living the nightmare, do not take the risk.
Original advice was a UK company was OK, all the bookings took place there (we also organised painting holidays here as well) and all the money went into a UK bank account. We then paid ourselves a salary which went into another account which we then transfered here as and when we required. However after a few years he decided to change his advice and we registered as a gite business here and closed down the UK company.
I registered at http://www.secuartsgraphiquesetplastiques.org/ the MDA, downloaded the forms and they sent me a piece of paper with a number on. Each year they send me a form to fill in with details of sales and that's it! I've no idea if this is correct but the tax office seem happy.
I enquired about the association possibility and the amount of money you can pay to yourself is limited. Officially, I mean.
What happens is that some people have great connections and manage to wangle subsidies from the mairie/conseil général/région... and aren't subjected to getting their accounts checked as we, lesser mortals, would be.
I strongly suspect that we will witness a crackdown on all associations in the near future and that heads will roll. Not the guilty ones, of course.
.... the popular perception of ex-communist block countries is bad.
Reality is different, and I have experienced it for over 20 years, but if you have trouble adapting to France's paradoxes and injustices, don't even try eastern Europe unless you don't need to work, educate your children and have money to fly abroad every time you need medical help.
You might also want to make sure that your skin is THE right colour (white) and that your name doesn't sound jewish.
Agree with Andrew and you about other places being as risky. Yes, Marie-Claire, you said it all very precisely. The problem with the truth, is that we are living in the middle of it up to our necks and if it all turns nasty whether French or not, we are going to have out homes taken from us, anything of value to us lost and our children's futures cast to the wind...
I definitely agree, Brian, about most people being uninformed, but this also stretches to journalists who, as Andrew says, love spreading doom and gloom (or "semer la m*rd*"....).
With our AE status, we pay relatively low charges, but we can't deduct expenses, so I can imagine that in many situations it would be advantageous to switch regimes. On top of it, there are a lot of things we aren't entitled to either: sick leave, good pension schemes, unemployment benefits and so on, so I would say we are paying more than our fair share anyway.
After sleeping on it, I thought that the government might want to cut back on companies letting staff go and then hiring them again as AE, rather than eradicate the AE status, as recently several places I work for have had this problem and had to give contracts to independent collaborators (and pay a nasty, nasty fine...).
I suppose that there will be a big outcry, and the government will spend time and money (all ours) in order to come up with a more complicated and less user-friendly scheme.
As for upping and leaving, I wouldn't advocate it unless you have a fool-proof, dead solid plan elsewhere. France isn't the only country going to the dogs, far from it.
Hi Neil. When you get a chance, can you let me know how you registered as an artist - with whom, etc.? I am AE but Henry has not been registered as anything yet. He was registered back in Ireland, which meant he was tax free, but would like him properly "paper-worked" here. Thanks.
Well, do you automatically switch to Entrepreneur independent when they close this?
I chose AE because it was simple and I could keep my freelance incomes below this level.
I know for a fact that I will loose some of my clients (I am a translator/interpreter) if I have to charge VAT, they are small non-French businesses, they will find someone else.
Are these people crazy? I think like you Finn, given my profession I can actually just pick up and go:) (don't really want to, but if they make life even more difficult than it is now...) I lived in Prague when it was younger, somehow it seems like a good alternative now.
They will truly ruin lives this way; I have an Anglo friend here who is AE like me, teaching English, she can't pay 45+ % social charges, it's not possible with her income level.
This is very sad news, but thank you very much for spreading it none the less:) I guess one will have to reconsider ones situation....
I think we should be careful about spreading too much doom and gloom before we know what exactly they are planning to do. As far as i can see, there's no plan to end the AE system, simply to "align" it with the other systems (micro, réel, etc). It all depends what they mean by "align". At the moment, AE's do benefit from very low social charges : for example, only 12% for commercial activities. I suspect that the main measure will be to increase this to something nearer what "real" commerçants pay. As long as they don't introduce minumum payments of social charges, regardless of income, then I think the system will still be attractive.
Apparently there's a meeting tomorrow between the minister and the AE representatives. It wil be interesting to see if we get any clarification.
No, but our taxi driving friend does not see the media because he is too busy is my point. He and his wife work all hours to make ends meet and, like us, feed and clothe their children as they should be, etc.
Same boat as you Suzie (french OH and kids) and was facing the same future, in the middle of big big changes both for OH and me as we launch ourselves into a new project to try and secure our (children too) future :-O
It's not being hidden by the media, Brian, it made TF1 20h00 headlines yesterday!
My bro-in-law is off home this morning, so we asked a friend who has his own taxi service to take him to catch his train to Bordeaux. The taxi turned up nearly half an hour early to have a coffee with us, as you might expect with a friend. He normally does children to school, elderly people to hospital and that kind of thing on contract, but works all hours anyway. His wife does some kind of physio therapy. Both are AEs. I asked him what he thought about the budget. He did not know. He does not have the radio on in his taxi because of his passengers normally and also because he has the hands-free phone in most of the time, rarely sees TV and cannot remember reading a newspaper. His wife is similar in terms of her access to media.
He suggested a lot of people will not have seen or heard about the budget because of news indifference and self-employed people's working hours anyway. However, after showing him quickly and suggesting the petition he jumped away aghast. He said that he has taken part in petitions to the government and has found that he is on 'lists' of some kind because they record the details of signatories. So he has given up signing them.
Paranoia or not, I wonder just how far this reflects the public attitude to information and how many people simply do not know about what the government is doing and then will also not petition them? His position was simply that he will sell his service to a bigger provider who has made an offer a while ago anyway and then work for that business for a wage. As for his wife? He did add, that with a degree in electrical engineering plus good English and German (they are, I've heard him use English with my daughter at least) and his OH having reasonable English, they can leave France if the going gets rough. I must say that on the uninformedness and attitude to petitions I am quite shocked.
Not an easy one, Neil, the AE scheme was great to get started, if a change had to be made then it should have been to give people 3 years in the system before moving them to the standard one, at least that way people would have the chance to have a go. Once income is at the upper end of the 33k limit, it's worth being in the standard system anyway. As for moving things back to the UK - I think you'll need a good accountant to work that one out properly! Bonne chance ;-)
PS all auto entrepreneur are billed the CFE after 3 years of activity even if they do no business...!
Brian, stick with it, I can't see it being any better anywhere else at the moment even if it is bloody frustrating with François at the helm. Has Sarko gone in to hiding to plan his come-back, rather like DSK going off to the IMF, time will tell...!
In a nutshell Neil, yes. We, as social researchers during a recession, are in exactly the same ess aitch eye tea as you but without the gite back up. We cannot go underground but do have accounts outside of France but then the pros and cons of that and how far we play that game... I am fed up to the back teeth. I came to stay, the economic downturn and now this are just making life ever more untenable. I shall NOT crawl back to the UK, nor will my OH crawl back to Switzerland is part of the gameplay but it is getting hard to make the next right move. I want to stay, François just shrivel up and go away...
Oh dear! Will have to go underground. When we originally moved to France we took all our bookings by our company in the UK for the first few years but as all the activity took place in France our accountant advised we should move the enterprise here. Will have to look at moving back to UK or the 3 year trick as outlined by Finn. I am registered as an artist and am exempt from the social charges until my income reaches 30,000€ but I expect this will change as the government is desparate to get it's hands on any dosh it can extract from the populace.
France is a great place to live, have kids etc (and French women aren't bad either!) but it isn't the best place to do business. This will be a real blow for all those wanting to have a go and drive so many into working on the "black"