When I was self-employed in the UK I always chose an accountant who could advise the best way to work within the tax system, the rule of thumb being that if your accountant isn’t saving you more than his fee, he isn’t doing his job right. (Tax efficiency, not tax avoidance). Here in France the accountant does all the paperwork but doesn’t give any advice as to how I can be more tax efficient. Is that general with French Accountants or do I have one who just isn’t really earning his fee.
I Have a feeling that the tax rules in france are less muddled than the UK tax system (which gives plenty of opportunities to exploit the system).
So no, there is probably less opportunity for accountants to advise on tax ‘efficiency’ because the rules are more stringent and carefully crafted.
I’m just wondering what you asked your Accountant to do. Perhaps an Accountant who is asked to do all the paperwork… does just that…
Maybe you need a Financial Advisor…
Just wondering…
I’m by no means an expert, we do our own, but I have some French builder friends (family business) and they were being taxed out of business by their accountant, because they didn’t ask for anything to be done to save them money - they wrongly assumed she was working for them. It got to the stage that it was no longer viable to work until they realised what was going on, changed accountant and asked questions about how to pay less, and how to get past overpayments back.
So you need to tell your accountant exactly what you expect from them.
Although we asked questions we might not have asked the right ones. An advisor might be the way to go.
Yes, this is where we are at. We appear to have paid tax equal to the amount of money we have earned rather than a percentage of it! The amount we are paying can’t be right so I think we will change accountant and “start again”. If we get any overpayments back we might be rich!
They aren’t, believe me, “less muddled”.
It’s just that whoever prepared your tax declarations are also responsible for their content. So, they will be asking YOU for all the paperwork that justifies your declaration of values.
They act, in fact, as a first-screen tax-inspector. Otherwise they lose their tax-preparation qualification and can go looking for another job …