You do not list finish dates. You only declare, retrospectively the date when an account was closed. Since this account has not been closed (because it has the same account number, therefore it is recorded as the same account - there could not be two different accounts with the same number), presumably you have never declared it closed. Where is the problem?
My simple logic is that if France wanted a list of institutions with whom you hold accounts, it would ask for a list of institutions. The fact that it asks for a list of accounts, strongly suggests to me that it wants a list of accounts. Or at the very least, that your back is better covered if you provide a list of accounts.
I cannot help thinking that unless you have hundreds of accounts you could have filled in a form for each in far less than the time you have devoted to trying to find reasons not to and think up problems. Each form only takes a couple of minutes once you get into the swing.
Thanks Sandcastle, it isn’t a question of saving time (I agree, it doesn’t take very long) it’s a question of doing it properly.
My question suggested that a fixed term deposit that reached the end of its term perhaps should be declared as closed, even if it was re-invested with another fixed term with the same number. Perhaps not as you suggest…
I think it depends whether you buy the same product again, or a different product.
A few bond ‘products’ continue to be offered year after year, and if on expiry you replace it with the same ‘product’, it is not a new account.
But existing products are constantly being withdrawn and new ones introduced with different names, often the name will include an issue number and this will change so XXX issue 4 will change to XXX issue 5 etc. The new product may be almost identical to the previous but if your account is issue 4, it cannot become issue 5. So if when your bond expires that product has been withdrawn and replaced by a new one and you buy the replacement product, or if you decide to change to a completely different product that suits you better (two years instead of one year or whatever) it will be a new account,
That is my impression. based on what I have noticed with the one UK institution I have savings with. Sometimes I get a new account when I reinvest, sometimes I do not and the repayment/reinvestment simply shows as a transation on the existing account.
If you manage your accounts online, it is easy enough to see whether it is a new account i.e. the only transaction on it is the opening investment you just made, or whether it is the same account showing your transaction history going back years prior to the new investment. They are not interested in transactions or maturity dates, just the existence of the account.
Thanks. I’m not even sure if a fixed term deposit can be called an “account”?
Anyway, I guess we can all agree that if it has a number, it is an account, and if the new fixed term deposit (or whatever type of account it is) continues with the same number, it doesn’t need to be declared as a new account (as you suggested above). I’ll go along with that as a good response. Thanks.
You declare all accounts whatever they are called. When you fill the form in, you specify which type of account it is. You would categorise a fixed term deposit account as a compte à terme.
Be careful. Do NOT try to fill in form 3916 FIRST, to get it over with .
This from another source
"If it is not your first time, your bank accounts outside of France are already listed BUT wait until
you get to tick box 8UU before you go onto form 3916 or you will lose them all!! "
You will lose ALL the info you entered last year and have to re-enter it
. And if you didn’t make a separate note of account opening dates, you will have to re-find that info. If you made up some of the dates, as I did, you will have to try to remember all of your made-up dates. I could not, of course, and had to just make them up again. Hopefully that never comes back to bite me.
Having multiple accounts did not mean you were rich… We had many accounts. The reason being, if you remember, when the interest rate fell after the financial crisis, banks were offering a better rate for new clients on the fist £1500 , so if you had 15 thousand pounds savings you had to open 10 accounts.
Do 3916 last is my advice.
Just one more thing… If information is indeed shared between countries, then why do we have to go through this rigmarole every year? Belt, braces, buttons and zip from the French bureaucracy. Comme d’hab.
I do a Paper Declaration (the Forms to be completed arrived in the Post from French Impots)
On one of the forms, there is a box where " information already known to the French Impots" is listed/described.
What a useful box…plenty of room for me to write in it…
As France already knows about my UK bank account… I used this box to re-enter the UK bank account details.
Presumably France is happy with my doings, as they didn’t send me a form 3916 to complete.
Given that different parts of the government here don’t actually communicate with each other I do have some doubts about external communication. But I’ve religiously filled out my 3916 and I have a spreadsheet to track my accounts open/ close/ interest etc. But I still found 3 accounts opened long, long ago with no money in, that I had simply forgotten about. How mean would it be to fine me €1500 for each of these accounts for this oversight?
Yes…see my recent discussion in this section titled “Life insurance…”
Wondering how much they know about us and what they might want to do with this information…
I suspect the tax authorities have a well-founded belief that some (particularly wealthy) French taxpayers occasionally suffer from a certain “amnesia” that they possess accounts offshore. Nowhere was this better exemplified than the ‘Affaire Cahuzac’, when Jerome Cahuzac, Budget Minister under François Hollande, ended up being convicted resulting from his failing to declare offshore accounts firstly in Switzerland then in turn Singapore that contained 600000€. A raft of transparency reforms were rapidly introduced in the wake of this scandal.
The more recently introduced global automatic exchange of (tax) information protocols are judged highly effective by tax authorities, which does indeed beg the question of whether the 3916 obligations have been overtaken by events. I suspect that having relied on 3916 for so long, the authorities are reluctant to abandon what has, until now, been a very useful weapon in their tax audit armoury.
Well, I’m certainly not in that category. I opened these accounts in the 1980’s when I was a student trying to bag the gifts attached to student accounts. I just decided I’d better find all my old accounts to avoid the Impôt fining me.
Hello Mr Shunt. May I ask if you have already filled in 3916 this year? If so , could you tell me how you handled it?
The reason I ask is that I am confused by the wording.
It says one can choose ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when reporting an existing account. But it says to choose ‘yes’ and one can then close the account later .
So, under what circumstance would one choose ‘no’ ?
I can’t remember what I did last year, it seems to have changed.
(I can hardly remember what I did last week, sometimes.)
I am wary of 3916 due to previous problems.
I have sent this question to the impots people but am awaiting a response.
In the tax form, I said “yes” to the question you’re talking about. And then entered the date on which I closed the account.
I assume those accounts will no longer appear in the list next year.
I too wonder under what circumstances you would answer “no” to the question you mention.
If you have no changes to report, maybe? In relation to the info the fisc already has.
I’d be slightly worried that if I said “no” all the accounts listed might disappear.
I have filled it in. It is a pain. On the first page, as far as I recall, you simply answer ‘yes’ if you still have it and ‘no’ if you’ve closed it. If you have more accounts than last year you give the number of additional accounts in the box at the bottom when it comes up. Then the separate page for each account comes up and you can put in the closed date where relevant and fill in the additional blank pages if you’ve indicated you have additional accounts. That I believe is what I did. I took screen shots of each page this year, so that I have a reminder. I also jotted down the number eg 8TK etc of the boxes I filled in on the 2042 and 2047 so that I don’t have to struggle through all the notes again. Apart from the 3916, I only filled in 3 or 4 boxes, so hopefully next year with all the reminders it’ll be easier.