Declaring Uk bank accounts

An earlier correspondent suggested as we do, just give a list of your accounts on a separate page and little else. Just include the title of the account, the sort code and account number. Sign and date it and check the box on form 2042K, page 4 at 8UU. You are only declaring accounts open/closed in the year you are returning (so for 2015 this time round).

Okay, thanks Graham. Will do.

John

Hi

We have been declaring our income for several years now, just a bit of advise on reading your answer on here, Hubbys goverment pension goes into *French bank and our private pensions go into UK accounts, all are declared on French tax form, but I dont think I have ever listed the 2 uk bank accounts... do I need another form or as some have said just attach another sheet of paper with details on? what do I need to put on? just the name of bank, account numbers ..... thanks Carolyn

I have always had a few UK bank accounts (I've been in France for over 30 years). I declared any significant amounts of interest received (nothing recently of course). I just found out last year that we also had to declare bank accounts abroad. I added it to my online declaration (in July last year) and said the account had been open since 1970! So far there has been no question, or fine. It was good timing as I only had a current account at the end of 2014, but during 2015 I got a retirement lump sum and sold a house in UK, so by the end of the year I had quite a few deposits which I can declare this year.

Report once, every year? The difficulty in France is not what 'should' be done, but how each local office interprets it. Which is why changing a UK driving licence to a French one is a breeze in some places and a life's work in others.

Entry 8UU specifies to attach declaration NĀ° 3916 or list accounts on a separate sheet of paper.

The on line declaration includes at the end 'Renseignements Complimentaires'... where it says you can report any specific details you wish to provide. I have used this space to report overseas accounts as the separate sheet of paper, since using the on-line service.

I understand it is now a requirement to disclose overseas pension funds.

Because at the minute I still do a paper return I just write out on a sheet of paper-headed 'Comptes bancaires etrangers'-a list of accounts giving :- bank name and address, account holder name (s), sort code, account number. If you have closed an account in the last tax year -put the date it was closed. If you have opened on-the date opened. They don't need to know how much is in the account. Attach that to you tax return and send off.

Thankyou very much.

I have just confessed to the tax office. They were very helpful and told me how to make the declaration with my next tax return. No suggestion of a fine, but there weren't large amounts involved and nothing in Panama!

Last year I was so panicked (through previous ignorance) I declared the rental income from renting out my house in NZ even though all the tax for that comes within the double taxation treaty and the tax is already paid in NZ. Ha. This year my income tax is almost double yet I have received not a centime extra on the planet. France taxes my NZ income anyway and that has put me into a higher tax bracket than the paultry sum I actually receive in France. Fairness is all one-way. As for my pitiful foreign bank accounts (including my mortgage account), I was required to use a specific form #11226*18 ( it's pink). Attaching a typed list of accounts is inadequate for me it seems.

We also have to declare our income from a rented property in the UK on french tax forms-even though as with tax is paid in the country where the property is. It's then discounted for tax purposes (as tax paid) although we pay social charges on it of course for health care ect.

I've done the same Peter, I've an accountant in the local village that handles all this for me for a very small fee. I agree that complience is the best route, I just couldn't take the hassle of an audit.

John, The short answer to your question as far as I can make out is 'YES'.

The explanatory notes which accompany Cerfa Form 3916 are quite clear on this point. Therefore you will need to complete sections 1, 2.2, and 4 of the form 3916.

This link will take you to the both the form and the explanatory notes : http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/deploiement/p1/fichedescriptiveformulaire_6165/fichedescriptiveformulaire_6165.pdf

The particular sections of the explanatory notes which seem to be relevant to your situation are the sections marked PERSONNES TENUES Dā€™EFFECTUER LA DƉCLARATION and also the last paragraph of the first page of the notes where the use of Section 2.2 is explained.

Interesting Mike, and what did you enter for ĀØsince when you have this account?ĀØ We have no idea when our account was opened, perhaps sometime in 1999?

If filing your return on line (as will be necessary for most people soon) then the impots.gouv.fr system makes the recording of information required about foreign bank accounts very simple. After ā€˜tickingā€™ the box 8UU on Cerfa 2042, as mentioned by Robert (Hodge) in earlier posts, the system automatically requires you to complete a declaration on form 3916 for each foreign account.

Unfortunately, if one has more than one account there is no option to create a list and I have not been able to find out whether supplementary documents (such as a pdf of a list of accounts) can be attached to an on-line submission. Putting the details required by Form 3916 into 'complementary information' section of the form is something that might be an option as others have said.

I submitted a list of my foreign accounts in 2013, with my first paper submission. So, I have used the information on that to create a separate form 3916 for each account in my on-line submission this year.

I am not sure that John (Bowman) is correct when he writes that details only have to be provided for accounts opened or closed during the filing period, because the word ā€˜usedā€™ also appears in the text in section 8 of Cerfa 2042. So, I have created a form for each account that I have - even though I previously provided a list of such accounts. The system eases this process because it auto-populates information, such as name, address etc, from one form 3916 to the next. As this information is almost certainly used to identify sources of global ā€˜wealthā€™ as well as indicate (potentially) sources of interest paid which may be taxable as income, then I do not think that it is only accounts opened or closed in the filing period that need to be captured.

My expectation is that these 3916 forms will stay on my electronic record for ease of reference in future and that I will only have to remove/supplement them if I do close or open an account in future. Only time will tell if Iā€™m correct!

If anyone has further information upon Johnā€™s (Bowman) comment that pension funds also need to be declared I will be interested to know. I declare life insurance (8TT of Cerfa 2042) but not pension funds which have not been a source of any income.

Haven't got around to that yet. Don't have to do it until next tax return. But you raise an interesting point. My UK current a/c was originally with the National Giro. That was transferred to Alliance and Leicester who eventually sold out to Santander, so there are three possible answers and I couldn't put an exact date to any of them. But I don't suppose it matters very much, My guess is that the tax office isn't going to waste time asking for confirmation from your English bank. So long as you give a date some time before you moved to France, a "best guess" will probably suffice.

Hello,
Could anyone advise me how I should declare the UK accounts?
The date of opening account= the original date of opening account, not the date of opening in the financial year (e.g. Jan 2019- Dec 2019)
When I first did my tax return in 2010, I asked the advice at the tax office, an officer advised me that no need to declare the foreign accounts if the interests are less 1000ā‚¬, thatā€™s why I have never declare the list of account.
Iā€™m just concerned that I will end up a fine if I only declare it now. Do I need to rectify the declaration for the previous three years?
For any gross interests earned, which column do I enter in form 2042 or 2047?
thanks

Hi Alisha and welcome to the forum.

Form 3916 is the one (I think) where you give details of ALL bank accounts held outside of Franceā€¦

You should simply give the details the form requiresā€¦

you can write a note saying that you have overlooked listing the accounts in previous years ā€œby mistakeā€ā€¦ you are allowed an honest mistake and will not be penalized.

(if you look at the threads about declaring interestā€¦ you will find the replies are thereā€¦ or you might like to start your own thread about 2042/2047ā€¦)

@Alisha_Chen

Alisha ā€¦this thread might helpā€¦

Thanks Stella

Our first tax submission was this year which we did via the website. Adding overseas bank accounts was fairly straight forward but there is quite a bit of info needed about each account (bank name, address, sort code, account number, opening date etc).

1 Like