I don't know if anyone can save us a fretful night's sleep. Last year my wife and I signed up to pay taxe d'habitation in instalments to not get a nasty big bill at the end of the year. We put away €94/month for 10 months, safe in the knowledge that come November we'd owe the government next to nothing.
Then come November, we owe the government €998!!! PANIC!
Turns out we signed up to pay "Taxe d'habitation - contribution à l'audiovisuel public" and have happily donated €940 into their coffers!
So yes, we probably won't have to pay any TV license for 10 years, but that doesn't help us right now, because we don't have a grand lying around to pay the ACTUAL taxe d'habitation!
Has anyone heard of anyone being daft enough to do this in the past and - crucially - does anyone know if it's possible for the Tresor Public to transfer the money from "contributions à l'audiovisuel public" over to "taxe d'habitation"? Cos if not, well... best sell one of the kids! :-/
The amount of the taxe seems to differ a lot from house to house. Ours is about 350 euros per year, but I have seen amounts like 5000 euros in this thread! Definitely something to take into account when you buy a house!
Yes and no, Steve - Le montant de la taxe d'habitation dépend du local occupé (superficie, éléments de confort ...). Elle dépend également à la marge du revenu des habitants : il est seulement pris en compte pour déterminer si une personne à revenu modeste peut bénéficier d'une exonération ou d'un dégrèvement. ;-)
Not to want to get into any argument but the Tax Habitation is based on a calculation that includes your income and tax fonciere and if your income is below a certain amount you can be exempt from tax habitation. The tax fonciere is the one that is based on rentable value and remains payable irrespective of your income.
if you look at the rear of the taxe hab paperwork, it explains exemptions. Age and income are the main conditions for relief. My partner and i are zero rated for imcome taxe, making us exempt. but still liable to CSG due to a few pennies from interest abroad..so my taxe hab payment is 16€ of a 160€ bill[we have a very tiny building] and i have to pay the tv licence, even though i watch uk tv via sat.. I understand the "rental value" is a theotretical value of a property if it were to be let, this value was calculated long ago and is nowhere near todays true values, so they add a modifying value each year to keep with inflation. Some friends were enjoying exemption until the husband became pensionable, which took them over the threshold, another couple of 75 who should be exempt by age, but fortunately have a good income and pay 5000 TH and TF..
I find that strange as our accountant told us as our income is below the level required as my wife is not yet of pensionable age due to the uk moving the goal post on pension age we do not pay tax habitation or tv licence and havent done for the last two years neither do two of our friends who are on the basic pension neither of them have paid in the last 5 years if it was based purely on rental income then it would not make any difference how much or little you earn surely, friend of ours who has a Gov pension plus others has money coming out of her ears pays the full amount plus income tax
Presumably the rental value can change (I haven't a clue how they calculate it) but the main reason it goes up and down is that the taxation level changes. My bill has three separate taxes -- commune, intercommunalité and taxe spéciale d'equipement. The rate of taxation for the first two are up on last year, the third went down -- by 20 percent! Which meant they charged me 4 euros instead of 5 euros! They give you the comparison with last year on the form so you can see where the increase has come from.
Ah Greg, that's what confused them with us too. I originally bought our house which was in my maiden name. Then of course I got married and so I asked them to change it too joint names using our surname. This caused them to set up 2 different accounts with the same fisc number!!! Simple data integrity you'd think - oh what I could do to their systems if they'd let me get their hands on them...I'd love a challenge.
Anyhow they tried telling me I must have 2 houses (which at the time I didn't) then they told me the second account could only exist because of that...needless to say I went around the houses and tax offices many times and eventually managed to pursuade someone in tresorerie that I was the same person and had 1 house. Et voila she cancelled the wrong account!
The taxe d'habitation is based on the rental value of the property -- the taxe locative brute -- not income, Suzy, so a drop in earnings doesn't have any effect.
Hi Suzy, it's been a difficult year since last december when I lost my wife through cancer but, one very pleasant surprise was me finding out I was exempt from Taxe d'Habitation from now one due to me becoming a widower, so if you are a widow then you shouldn't pay the this particular tax either. I still don't understand why but the law is the law and i'm not complaining !
Peter,why does being a widower mean you don't pay taxe d'habitation?Because you're alone? I'm alone and I've got a huge demand,980 euros,much more than last year even though I earned less last year than the year before.
All sorted folks, total cock-up on numerous levels by various offices. They had it down as a second home, they hadn't mapped the payments to the right account, they'd charged us for things we shouldn't have been charged for and vice versa. Total mess!
Best part, you have a numèro fiscal, right? You'd *think* they'd use that to map monthly payments to tax accounts, right? WRONG! They use surname. And because the numèro fiscal is in my name (Harvey) and my wife paid from her account (different surname) they didn't match them up - EVEN THOUGH WE GAVE THEM THE SAME NUMBER!
I don't know why the numèro fiscal even exists if the authorities don't use it. Unbelievable.