Thanks @Rod_Webb, good to know I’m not the only one! I do worry about getting it wrong, having heard several horror stories about expats ticking the wrong box on a form somewhere along the line and then having a nightmare trying to sort things out afterwards. However - being an eternal optimist - I suspect things are rarely that bad. I’m reminded of my mother when she first got a computer, worrying that there was a button she might accidentally press that would cause some kind of personal Armageddon.
I’ve had a couple of attempts at finding a professional adviser… one turned out to be a jolly nice chap but he didn’t actually have a clue about tax etc. and suggested a couple of decidedly dodgy practices… the other looked like he had all the right credentials but failed to respond to my initial email and follow-up phone call. Meh. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise - I think recommendation is absolutely the way to go.
Please do let me know how you get on. The recommendation from @anon27586881 in the above link looks promising too. Bon chance!
Thanks so much @JaneJones - I think you’re absolutely right, and I’d really like to try and work it all out for myself if I can, for all of the reasons you’ve mentioned (plus the fact that I’m stubbornly independent!)
I managed without an accountant in the UK. When I first set up my business, I did some research and arranged a meeting with the tax man who was really friendly and helpful. I’ve kept my own accounts and done my own self-assessment returns for the past 16 years. I’m sure a similar approach will work here in France… it’s just a bit daunting when you first start trying to get to grips with it all. This forum is brilliant and your reply is really encouraging
French tax is pretty straightforward and the tax people are helpful. I hated HRMC when I was self employed in the UK but never had a problem in France. You’ll be fine.
For advice on French and English tax and transfers and changes of tax between England and France, and also advice on the category into which you fit, I recommend Cabinet Henderson, the bi-lingual branch of Compagnie Feduciaire. Just google them and they will come up on the internet. They have almost finished my tax situation. They took everything in their stride, in a competent efficient manner and understood why I was late organising this. (I had an accident and broke my back). I found the ordinary tax offices absolutely charming and helpful, but they couldn’t help me with my diverse profession. I tried this website but no-one gave me any useful advice that I could follow. When I went to Cabinet Henderson I realised most of what I was given here was half-right or just an opinion. I recommend you get professional advice and invest the fee in getting it taken care of properly so that you are inserted well into the French system. I found this to be very personally advantageous as to tax. This also suited my temperament as I am a socially conscious person and like to pay my taxes in the proper way.
When I asked questions here I did get one correspondent who I considered abusive. He discourteously printed some of my web site on this site without asking me (as if I didn’t know what was on my own site) and there was a veiled allusion that I might be working on the black. or avoiding taxes. I found this insulting as my tax was fully paid up in England and I had signed a form so as not to duplicate the tax in France. His name was Dan Miller and he was an angry and judgmental man, who the moderator told to shut up!
I asked a question about the relationship between the application for a Carte Vitale and earnings. I received polemics I didn’t expect.
Additionally, I applied for my Carte Vitale late November 2019 and I received notification of a successful application on 5 February - so not too bad.
If I am honest, I didn’t mind the mistakes, as this is not a professional site, and I didn’t expect it to be - but I thought I might receive some entrées into how to make my way. This was my disappointment: that my very own English diaspora could be harsh and so sure of their rightness. This was so upsetting to me. I found the French people much more sympathetic, both in the ordinary way and in the tax and CPAM offices. Vive la France!
So please, understand the limitations of this site, and get professional help and don’t waste your time in the hinterlands
Perhaps, for such complex tax affairs a socially conscious person might have thought of taking a direct approach to a firm whose business it is, rather than asking some unknown randoms online and then bitching them up when they attempt to help, but what do I know, eh.
Dan Miller didn’t help - he was rude and discourteous. The moderator told him off, I didn’t mention your name, as you were not - and you didn’t give me any tax advice. Stay objective. i wanted pointers not advice. There is such an expression as: I don’t know. I don’t bitch and I think you can see that.
I didn’t mention in my response that you had told me that UK National Health was residency based, I took it as a simple mistake. There are actually exceptions and you didn’t mention those and I was an exception and you apologised. Remember ?
I’m glad you have your situation sorted. It seemed quite complex, so good to have found a firm with the right experience.
However, I always feel you have to try to inform yourself too even if this sometimes means taking on a mixed bag of information first. And in general people here are trying to be helpful.
But experts aren’t infallible either, so you need to know enough yourself to ask the right questions. We have an accountancy firm dealing with our business and this year they made a fairly significant mistake. It was only because we had enough knowledge that we spotted the mistake and managed to get it rectified.
What I find difficult is that you haven’t actually read my mail. I didn’t actually ask about tax on this site - I asked about the relationship of income to the application for the Carte Vitale and I wondered which box to tick? I had just received the form. I was a new person in France and was ignorant of things and so started with this site. I got the answer - it might have been from you and so I followed that. It was people on the site who chose to chip in with tax advice, to tell me that I should be registered, that I could be working on the black (more than one! So you must have noticed many people doing it!). I had observed the limitations of this site, as you say, but it was not being observed by certain site members - who took upon the themselves the judgemental task of telling me off. Dan Miller was particular insulting and reproduced part of my web site without asking me. I knew what was on my site as I wrote it - so was it a shaming exercise? i considered him discourteous and also aggressive. I am repeating this information because you have not read the story you are replying to. I acquired the information for myself about tax, and did the decent thing, and did find help independent of this site. The only difference between your reply and Véronique’s is that yours is reasonable language and hers is a bit acidic to say the least. It seems to me that you are standing up for the limitations of this site (which I agree with) but certain people on the site are not practising that.
I have told my story on this site as it unfolded. It is not bitching: it is just my story, my experience. Things are like that in life. Not everything works out nicely. Being adult, rather than reactionary, about the difficulties of life is not a bad thing. As it so happens my tax is simple. I work in a diverse and imaginative way, but actually, because I do everything myself and do not employ anyone, I am a simple ’travailleuse indépendante’ !!! What could be simpler?
I recommended Cabinet Henderson because they dealt simply with my affairs and were efficient. I also mentioned the limitations of this site at the same time, and in this i agree with you. I didn’t know about any links with CPAM and just asked the question on this site. I got a barrage of replies of people acting like tax consultants when they were not.
The point I’d like to make is that I have received two mails on this subject, each apparently supporting the other - and neither has the grace to admit to my unpleasant, I would say, bullying experience. Nor the grace to realise that the question you are answering for me, was not asked by me in the first place.
It was a very specific situation and not really appropriate to ask advice on a forum IMHO. The original question was
Perhaps a little unfair of the OP to expect an answer to her question about healthcare and no discussion of the tax issues since you can’t really separate tax and healthcare since healthcare depends firstly on which country you’re tax resident in, and secondly whether your income is earned or unearned ie are you actif or inactif. And the OP seems to have recognised this since she herself mentioned tax, salary slips and employment status in her post.
But I think posters failed to appreciate that the situation was non standard, and insisted on keeping trying to apply simple rules that didn’t apply here.
Let’s stop the witch hunt. I posted parts of a web site that stated that someone worked in France when they had claimed that they did not. That was to support the fact that it was usual for work carried out in France to be taxed in France.
I think you must have me confused with someone else, I didn’t actually tell you anything at all, because I didn’t say anything on your previous health-insurance related thread.
I am not an ‘expat’ not English, not retired…
Brenda… Nope, it was not me… UK National Health is not an area I know anything about.
For questions re French stuff (eg “Setting up in France”) my general advice is to go to the appropriate office (CPAM/Tax/whatever) … and speak with someone face to face… and that was the advice I gave to you.
In answer to the Title… I reckon there is no Fool’s Guide… just folk (of all nationalities) who have been-there and done-that…
On this forum, each person throws their own experiences/thoughts into the mix… and the results will be generally chewed-on and swallowed … or chewed-on and then spat-out…
