Hi from Lausanne

Introduce yourselves...
1

New to the forum so just saying hello. We’re a family of 6 that have been living for almost 15yrs in Switzerland, originating from “up Norf” in the UK. We’ve toyed with the idea of a move to France for many years but we lacked the motivation to get ourselves into gear. Now we have found the motivator, money ! With the current situation making life harder and harder it’s made us realise that we live too close to the financial edge and we need to do something about it and so we are starting the process of a serious investigation into a “Life in France”

Bear with me on the usual financial questions, that’s a topic i really must get a good understanding on and make sure i’m not overlooking too many details.

The exercise should be quite simple:

  • become an expert in the French tax and social cost system
  • set up a new company (close or freeze my Sàrl in Switzerland)
  • find that dream house
  • relocate 6 people and a small zoo a few hundred KM’s

Simples as that little furry fella on the TV add says :grinning:

The first one is my main task right now, can’t afford to gt that wrong…

So here goes (picture short bald man peering off a cliff ready to jump off) :dizzy_face:

Looking forward to learning on the forum as there seems to be many experienced people on here and many that have done all this stuff in their stride.

So hello

2 Likes
2

Hi Nigel and welcome to the forum.

Thinking of moving to France… eh… :upside_down_face: :upside_down_face:

I reckon one needs a mixture of guts and insanity… with a good measure of comedy running on through… :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes: :hugs:

Anyway… you’ll find loads to rummage through in the various categories… and if you need info or advice… just ask the questions and folk will be sure to chime in and help… :relaxed: :relaxed:

cheers

3

Interesting to move from Switzerland to France - that is not the norm for this website - à whole new set of challenges.

4

Thanks Stella, will do some digging around that’ll probably raise more questions to add to my ever growing list…

5

I see it as a move West rather than the usual move South :grin:

Language at least isn’t an issue

6

We might need to learn how to yodel… ??? :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

7

“With this skill, endowed already many there are, diaphragms supple and tonsils relaxed. Overlooked often is this” .

Yoda, la Cave, Perriers en Beauficel.

8

A little unusual to move from Switzerland to France, given the perceived differences in taxation and libertarian decision making, but why not ?

My understanding of most Swiss people’s opinion of France is that it is a highly interventionist, high taxation (at all levels) state, which I suppose it is to a certain extent. The upside of this is that the state, in the majority of cases, does “have your back” when you are “in the system” and things happen to get tough. IMO, however, the French system clearly favours salaried workers, rather than independents (and having been both, and currently independent for over 10 years now, I have some experience in the matter). If you intend to be an independent, I am not sure that France would be the ideal choice, and there will no doubt be other factors to take into account that may sway the balance.

Another upside is that the overall cost of living, from what I know of Switzerland, is lower in France. Housing, for example, except for large cities and the popular tourist areas, is relatively cheaper in France than in Switzerland, from what I’ve been told by Swiss people I know, who have either rented, built, or bought property. I can’t speak for utility bills, and the like, which I could imagine as being higher in Switzerland than in France, but I have no real perspective of those other than through the general cost of living.

For me, the healthcare system is on the whole very good, as is the education system (yes, it has its oddities and ill-famed slowness to evolve - “le mamout” as it has been called in the past - with a focus on churning out massive numbers of highly formatted young adults who are, depending on who you ask, either seemingly incapable of thinking for themselves, or the elite of international broad spectrum education, but it does what it can with a seriously creaking infrastructure and underfunded budget ! Higher education in France can definitely be considered to be “elitist” in many respects IMO, one of the things I personally dislike about the French higher education system, and which still pervades society today in terms of employment prospects.

Of course, much of what I write above has been influenced by my own personal experience of having lived and worked in France for 27 years, and seen 3 kids go through the education system. Other people’s experience may well be different.

9

Thanks Alex, a great insight from an experienced person is always useful, especially what you mentioned regarding independent vs employee. My plan is to set up an Sàrl as i have in CH and keep doing the same activity, of course my task now is to establish what the cost differences are especially in tax, social and pension costs for both the private side and company side of my activity.

Interesting what you say about the French system having high costs by having your back so to speak, here the costs aren’t low but the support for CEO/owners of companies is at best very poor (lets say you’re on your own in C-19 for example…)

PS what is tax… :grin: can’t i just register in another canton and avoid it all together :thinking:

Thanks again

1 Like
10

If you are going to be a CEO of a limited liability company, then by default you will be a TNS (travailleur non-salarié) - with hindsight, I would probably not choose to be a TNS again for a number of reasons :

  • no unemployment benefit, if your business collapses ;
  • no unemployment benefit as an administrator of the company (unless the rules have changed recently) ;

Obviously, this decisions comes down to a personal risk choice as an entrepreneur.

  • you pay up to about 60% of your “résultat” in state contributions (obligatory social, health care and pension regimes), and are personally taxed on the rest, whereas if you become an employee of your company, then the business takes the hit instead (corporation tax where applicable if you turn a profit) and you are only personally taxed on the salary you pay yourself (plus any dividends).

This results in higher overheads for the business (my accountant reckons about 30% more than just being self-employed).

  • the upsides of being an employee of your own company - predetermined rate of social contributions in line with your salary, both from the employer’s and employee’s perspective. Additionally, income tax is now debited at source by the employer (PAYE);

  • the downsides of being an employee of your own company are that there is a greater degree of formalism to adhere to, salary increases / decreases, etc, all require documented decisions, and have immediate repercussions, and require greater vigilance to not fall foul of some regulation or other;

  • if the revenues of the business go up and down quite a lot, then having a highly paid employee could bring the business to its knees, as salaries still need to be paid, and now that the state asks the business in advance to collect your personal taxation, you could quite easily end up with financial pressures on the business that are not easy to resolve. The state is generally very unforgiving when it comes to paying social charges, income tax, etc.

As usual, swings and roundabouts.

11

Sounds like you’ve been there and done that Alex, i’ll take your advice and explore self employment as well, in fact my goal is to make a basic financial model of both solutions to see what costs less, but from reading what you write above it already sounds like SE is a lower cost route. That solution wasn’t available to me in CH as to be SE you had to have 3 or more clients and as i only had 1 then Sàrl was my only choice. I may have a way around that now by having 3 clients but all from different countries (Israel, Canada and UK). More digging me thinks…