Moving to France

Here in the US many of us would be on our knees in gratitude for NHS. Our compatriots’ antipathy for any kind of reasonable healthcare is bewildering to us. I recently had a scare in Florida, the bigger scare frankly was the $150,000.00 bill that currently resides on my kitchen table. Medicare will handle some of it but certainly not all of it. My husband and I are wondering how Social Security funds are considered in France. We live on it here in New Orleans although my husband still works as a tour guide, but this year has been just horrendous financially here. Slowest year in memory. Not sure why although the storm season certainly didn’t help. New Orleans politically is a bright blue bubble in a sea of red. We moved here years ago because culturally it was the furthest from mainstream “Walmart America” that we could get and still be in an urban environment. We weren’t ready to set up a compound in Montana and never will be. We are looking seriously at the Dordogne near Sarlat and we’d be renting not buying yet. We’re not big spenders and are hoping that we could live on the Soc Sec we currently live on (and here our rent is an outrageoud 1500/month Katrina followed by corporate AirBnB’ers drove rents into the stratosphere here while decimating some neighborhoods). We’re wondering if our Soc Sec would be taxed in France. Anyone know or have any other insights comments?

Thanks,
Sam

You would need to check the US-France tax treaty to clarify this. If you live in France you have to declare your worldwide income here but in fact, income tax isn’t a great burden in France except for high earners, social security contributions are a bigger burden for many people. Assuming you join the French state healthcare system, you would be charged cotisations based on this income.

(It’s a bit confusing because in the US, social security contributions also seem to be referred to as “taxes”, whereas for Brits “tax” usually means income taxes. In France, tax and social security contributions are dealt with by different organisations and are considered two entirely different things.)