That sounds like a business to me!
Taxe foncière though, it has just occurred to me, is there an age related exemption? Perhaps that is why you no longer pay it. But certainly us youngsters (lol) do.
There is an exemption I think at 75 but not sure on that age as gospel truth. However in cases such as people like me who have income under a certain level and are RSA beneficiaries, we can be exempt but only after submitting several pages of personal info, even the CV puissance and age of your car is demanded amongst other things so if you have a business and make money and pay tax, have a new car etc you won’t get exemption. I elected to pay TF in my old commune as it was under €300/year but what happens here will affect me in time and perhaps an exemption due to my level of income and personal circumstances.
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Maybe it would actually cost you less to get a siret number and pay the business tax instead?
If it is a separate building, which nobody lives in permanently, I do not see what it can be classed as if not a maison secondaire. One household cannot have two separate principal residences.
You could always sell it…
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incorrect information posted - withdrawn
What!!! It’s only €4 per personne per night in the FourSeasons Hotel in Paris! I don’t think you mean taxe de séjour!
I would seriously look at changing status. A siret number is free and you still declare via micro-bic on your normal tax return. The CFE is set locally and in many places there is an exemption for those who take in less than €5k (but not all!). Plus an exemption for the first year of “business”.
Check rates locally, but our CFE is less than half the taxe d’hab for the building was.
Probably when you set up things were looser, but everyone who takes in money should now have a siret, especially if you claim the 50% reduction in tax and as a LMNP this should be shown on your invoices.
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Thanks everyone for your comments (and speculation) about our income/tax scenario. And my apologies for hijacking this thread. I merely was warning @Glen_Margaret_Griffi to avoid being sucked into calling their summer kitchen a maison secondaire from our own experience.
Just to clarify a few points and I’ll bow out.
We have French friends helping us to resolve this who themselves have a gite. He is very astute when it comes to tax matters.
Up until December we paid no T d’hab on our gite, which has been such since 2015, for which we have confirming paperwork from the Mairie
We no longer pay tax fonc. And that (so far as I’m aware) has nothing to do with income or age. I thought it was just being phased out? Hence the need to replace that loss of income with the tax d’hab on second homes. But maybe I’ve got that completely wrong.
We are not penniless (@graham ) and yes we have pensions. When we bought the house and ruin I swore I would never have a gite, but the ruin became a lovely cottage (no way would I sell it) and I suddenly realised friends were staying for free, causing work, money was getting tighter, exchange rates were lousy and the cottage could earn us some pocket money and it became a “hobby gite”. The modest income we get from it is declared in our total tax reporting here in France and we have followed the advice of our tax adviser.
If I have to pay 700€ + a year that will add an average of an additional 100€ costs to each booking. I cannot justify increasing next year’s prices by that amount (this year’s bookings are already full based on prices I set before all of this blew up) so there will be a corresponding dip in our “pocket money”.
On the other hand, if we stop using the cottage as a gite then there will be no pocket money at all and we will still have to pay that 700€+ , so we will be that much worse off.
@JaneJones we will be discussing with our expert friends and tax adviser whether the siret option will be the best route once we’ve had a reply to our appeal letter. (We’ve asked for the tax d’hab back).
And by the way, we do pay taxe de sejour on behalf of our guests. They are Brits and it just makes life easier not to be adding bits and pieces to their fee. The local tourist office knows I do this, they have no problem at all with this - they just want the money and don’t care where it comes from.
Hope this makes sense and as I’ve said, I’ll now bow out of this thread.
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No Sue, only if you meet age AND income thresholds are you exonerated, Here is the detail for 2023 - over 75 and income less than approx €19k for a couple. It is taxe d’hab that is being phased out except for second homes.
Glad you have knowledgeable friends helping with this, just do check that they are up to date. Much has changed in last few years.
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Thanks Jane. I’ll double check with OH as he does all this and I understood him to say TF. Promise our friends are VERY up to date. They currently own a gite in the Pyrenees and several rental properties and he’s absolutely on top of his finances. They came round for tea during the week with a briefcase full of his paperwork to show me and their eyes lit up the moment we started talking about the tax stuff!!!
(sorry - still wittering on)
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My sort of people! Nothing like a bit of French bureaucracy to get me energised…
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Getting back to tax de sejour for a moment.
Vero the chart of payments which you put on here was correct and we used this to calculate our payments.
In my region, which is 5km from my previous property the calculation of the tax de sejour is based upon a percentage of your nightly income, It is this office which sets the fees and they are calculated differently to those which are set out as you state above,
Each 700 euros extra pulls hard at the resources and makes operating a gite unrealistic. But this is probably what the gov is trying to do,
I pay this tax on behalf of the client not my agency.
Air b and b have a different approach but i am not with them.
Are you saying you do not ask your gests for the TdS, you pay it from your own pocket? Surely you are supposed to collect the TdS from your guests and simply pass it on!
Of course it will be a burden if you insist on paying it yourself on their behalf But you can hardly say that government is giving you this burden on purpose to make running gites unrealistic, because they are not giving you this burden at all. It is your choice, by not doing things as you are supposed to. It should not be a cost to you at all.
I do not understand why you would do this. Tourists do not generally mind paying a few euros TdS, they understand what it is for and they expect to pay it and they have budgeted for it. If we stayed at a gite and were not asked for the TdS I would be surprised. I believe that not everywhere charges it but everywhere we go seems to.
What if you are inspected and asked to show your receipts, and there is no mention on them of TdS?
Are you listening to me?
Please tell me which platforms pay for tax de sejour for the owner. for gite owners.
Yes in hotels the tax de sejour fee is added to the bill and the client pays it.
Check out with various reservation platforms to see if they pay this tax and you will get an answer,
You get to a point when you have to move on and sell. Fortunately I can do this,
Sorry I do not understand.
It is your job to collect it. You simply ask your guests for it when they arrive, and give them a receipt.
I think it is booking.com that we use (my wife will know). We pay for the stay online upfront, and when we check in we pay the taxe de séjour, along with the security deposit if there is one.
I think on the booking confirmation it says something like 'taxe de séjour is payable when you arrive at the property".
My agency makes all the financial arrangements and remits my payments directly to our buisness account in France, They work in the same manner with thousands of property owners.
Booking.com is probably like air b and b.
As I said, booking.com does not collect TdS. The person at the property does that. I do not understand what is stopping you from doing this. You do the maths (adult guests x nights x nightly amount), collect the money, keep a record, either keep it locked in a safe or put it into the bank, then at the end of the season you have the money ready to hand over. I believe that is what is supposed to happen.
What do other people do…i wonder.
My agency deals with akll the finances, asking the clients for more money sounds crazy and they would not agree to this,
Easy. I’m registered with my local tourist board. Each month they send me an email reminder to register my guests on their site. Every three months they ask me to pay the taxe de sejour I owe, which I do online using my bank card.
If my guests come via Vrbo, I do not register them as Vrbo has already collected the money from them when they booked. So it’s Vrbo’s responsibility to hand over the money.
Agreed about not being prepared to ask my guests for more money when they arrive. Not necessary. I choose not to be a tax collector.
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