I’m British but I had been resident in France between November 2020 and December 2024. The original plan was to move to France for good, as a result, I setup everything in France and was self-employed there and paying tax there.
In January 2024, I got married and my wife (neither British or French) joined me in France in March 2024. Once she arrived, we started the residency application, she got setup as self-employed, got a social security number and so on…
Fast forward a few months, we changed our minds, decided to move back closer to my family and in December 2024 we both terminated our self-employment in France and returned to the UK.
Now it’s that time of the year and I need to file my 2024 personal tax return but I’m pretty confused on how to move forwards here.
The immediate issue is that my wife never got her personal tax number, so I can’t declare my marriage online and am told that I need to file a paper form instead.
Even if I figure out the correct paper forms and print them off, I’m still a bit confused about how we are going to do the combined tax return for the household given that while we were married since Jan, we only lived together in France since March.
I’m not in France anymore, so i’m not really sure who I can get in touch with to help me… Can an accountant do the paper forms on my behalf? Any recommendations on somebody I can get in touch with?
Some thoughts…this is an unusual situation and what I suggest below is more practical than purist. Others may have better suggestions…
France accepts that married couples can live in separate countries and there is guidance where that situation continues. Attached below for information…
However in your case you started off living in separate countries then are both residents of France in the same year. If your wife earned nothing/had no French source income in France when presumably non-resident, for the 2 months in 2024 prior to moving here, there is nothing for France to tax during that brief period.
Subject to ideas from others who may have come across this before, I would have thought the practical thing for you to do is file a single return, jointly, as residents, on paper for 2024. Ensure you clearly state in the ‘any other information’ type space that your wife became resident during the year but that no taxable French income was received by her in that short period of non residence (assuming this to be the case).
Unfortunately you will be very lucky indeed to find any tax adviser who has any spare capacity whatsoever at this time of year, so best advice is to download the tax forms off the internet, use your best efforts to declare all relevant income etc, and file them with your former tax office by (as a precaution) the paper filing deadline of 20 May. You can of course amend/correct your return at a later date, perhaps by then with the help of a professional adviser, subject to certain time conditions.
Thanks @George1, that is very useful information. In 2024 she didn’t have any taxable income outside of the few months where she resided in France. During that time, she had a self-employed activity in France (for about 3 months) so did earn a little (all contributions have been paid to URSSAF for this).
I’ll be sure to try and make it super clear in the ‘additional info’ box and keep copies of what I send so that I can share it with an accountant later on.
