AW - No of course there isn’t a ‘problem’ with realizing that each country deals with its own citizens’ tax affairs differently to other countries, regardless of where in the world the ‘additional’ income arises. I’m not the one with the problem…
But sometimes very clever tax lawyers can put different ‘spin’ and interpretations on individual country’s tax regulations… after all most of the taxing ideas have been put forward by lawyers anyway; so you set a ‘thief’ to catch a ‘thief’; otherwise known as playing them at their own game.
Most of us who’ve moved out from the UK to France are very well aware of the different tax treatments for different bits of ‘income’. It’s just that the OP is in a rather unique position - and down entirely to two different countries interpretation of their own tax rules and regs.
Still a question about income tax but in a slightly different vein. My understanding is that the monthly witholding tax that we are now paying is based on the retuns we submitted during the past 3 years and the tax we paid. And that these monthly payments will be set against our 2019 tax bill NOT 2018.
We will complete the declarations for 2018 as usual and submit them in May this year and unless there is an ‘exceptional’ difference between that and previous years our 2018 tax liability will be waived.
This, as Madame points out, sounds to good to be true.
Can anyone confirm or put us right on what the new rules actually mean.
The government pretty much he to do it this way otherwise the switch form collecting tax in arrears to doing so prominently in the tax year to which it applies would mean people praying tax twice over in the first year - I suspect that would have made the government extremely unpopular.
Thanks Stella - unfortunately the example given in this article is complicated by the employment of a housekeeper and takes a tax credit into account. I was hoping that somebody could point me in the right direction on the impact of the new rules on 2018 global revenue and whether or not it is truly an ‘Annee Blanche’.
If you read what they are talking about… they make if clear that (in the main) the “Salary” income will not be taxed. They will look at what they have Calculated on 2017 Income to become this year’s DASource.
They are quite clear that if 2018 Income (to be Declared in May)… was vastly different from 2017, there will be an amendment… either a demand or a reduction… and, of course, Tax and Social Charges are always due on certain Income.
(I had not used the example, I merely read the bumpf… )
Many folk are finding it confusing, not just the Brits… 
Le prélèvement à la source est mis en place pour l’année 2019. Pour faciliter la compréhension, nous allons nous focaliser sur le calendrier des années 2019 et 2020.
Rappelons qu’en 2018, vous avez fait une déclaration en mai en indiquant les revenus perçus de 2017. Vous avez reçu un avis d’imposition en septembre 2018 et l’impôt a été payé.
La fameuse année blanche est celle de 2018. Cette année blanche ne concerne en gros que les salaires. Toutes les autres sources de revenus ainsi que les réductions/crédits d’impôts seront pris en compte.
Dès janvier 2019, votre salaire subit le prélèvement à la source. Les impôts se baseront sur la fiscalité 2018 des revenus 2017 pour estimer le taux à prendre sur vos salaires. Même chose en février, mars… chaque mois l’impôt estimé est pris sur votre salaire.
La difficulté se situe en mai 2019. Vous allez faire une déclaration d’impôt de vos revenus… 2018! C’est une année blanche seulement pour la partie salaire. Il va de soi que la déclaration d’impôt est maintenue afin de pouvoir déclarer les frais réels, les réductions d’impôt, les revenus bancaires ect…. Ainsi, le fisc va pouvoir calculer l’impôt comme il le faisait avant sur l’avis d’imposition 2019 des revenus 2018 que vous recevrez en septembre 2019. Dès septembre, le fisc ajustera le taux du prélèvement à la source pris sur vos salaires. Il le fera chaque année en septembre.
En parallèle, les impôts vous rendront de l’argent en septembre 2020 ou en prendront plus si l’impôt engendré par la déclaration fiscale des revenus 2019 ne correspond pas à celui prélevé à la source depuis le début de l’année. Prenons un exemple pour y voir plus clair.
Thank you Stella - that’s a lot clearer - i’ll get Madame to do the full traduction when she get back from her travels.
Premium Bonds are a rather special case because the ‘prizes’ are paid from a fund that has already been diminished by a notional tax. But because you can redeem these bonds the French authorities don’t consider them to be a lottery so they are taxable.
Fair enough; if you choose to live here you should obey the rules. However, nobody should ever sneak on anybody else who choses to do things differently. That’s entirely between them, the authorities and their own conscience.
@Tom. How far do you take that tho’? There is a fine line about what is fair enough to leave to people’s own consciences, and what should prompt a citizen’s response. I do feel that avoiding tax is often seen as fair game but it is actually stealing from us, all the other tax payers. Is that fair?
So someone breaking the law should be left to it? I don’t agree.
Bollocks! I’d grass them up in a heartbeat! (see above)
Can’t agree with that Tom. Anyone not paying their taxes means everyone else has to pay more.
Personally I wouldn’t either…
I did have £500 quids worth of premium bonds in U.K. but cashed them in before I left as I decided I wanted a clean break and it seemed to me that there was a potential for misunderstanding…especially my misunderstanding of the French system…
If I was to ‘grass up’ everyone I know who doesn’t comply with the law I wouldn’t have time for anything else, it’s hard enough keeping up with what you yourself have to declare etc without worrying about what others are up to, life’s too short.
I have been advised time and again that it is worldwide income to be declared and take the advice. But wonder if I am liable to pay tax when I have been paid what was owing to me in 1996 on proceeds of a book I published then ???
That’s a novel way of referring to fraudsters and criminals. But I suppose totally in iine with the “alternative facts” thinking.
What a world it’s coming to, where we call lies “alternative facts”, and breaking the law, “choosing to do things differently” to try and confuse people’s moral compasses.
Does it really need to be explained to this generation why it’s better to tell the truth and abide by society’s laws, and how many problems risk being caused when people lie and cheat without a qualm - as shown by Brexit, arguably? It’s not a world I want to live in.
I wouldn’t grass up an individual but if I felt it was a big problem round here, I would draw it to the attention of my conseiller général urging her to flag it up with the relevant bodies and encourage them to consider setting up an initiative to combat it.
If you’ve just received the income now and you haven’t yet paid tax on it anywhere, and it relates to work you did whilst tax resident in the UK, then I guess you should declare it and pay tax to HMRC. Not exactly sure how it works but I believe that unless it takes you over your personal allowance in the UK which is over £10k there would be no tax to pay in practice. Then you can declare it as part of your worldwide income in France as foreign income taxable in a different country.
If you wrote the book in France then you should declare it here in the normal way.