They are going to limit the time you can be AE as a main activity to two years and as a secondary activity you can not exceed 15,000 euros.
Have work to do but this is ludicrous!
Sarah, because a lot of people with no investment at hand to invest, no properety to mortgage & no job opportunities to take up and a bit of savvy about how to earn pocket money until something better comes along, are desperately trying to eek a living out of working part time or creatively. Often these "enterprises" are experiments and -given enough time - some will blossom into something good, but more often than not, are just creative ways to occupy people whilst they are looking for a better living. To wipe away the chance of this and relegate everyone without a full-time salary into "unemployment" is a big mistake. Especially after people have tasted the freedom behind the motivation to be creative that comes with this kind of system. Basically, being an AE it's like being declared "unemployed but doing something about it"....and I don't want that taken away from people. (ps I'm "unemployed" and still doing something about it because my partner is already AE)
Although, having said all that, I can quite understand the idea that keeping AE's on indefinitely is simply massaging the real unemployment figures...so benefitting the right wing parties who invented it in the first place.
What we all really need is for the banks to give us our money back. Pity Iceland is so cold & small & far away.
The difference is that if you earn nothing you pay nothing and still have all of the benefits of RSI, at least for up to two years. This, looking at what the government is proposing, would go.
I can see where you are coming from, I think I was scared by the fact that I was told it would be a set figure no matter what and that I would have to prove I could not pay that amount, then it would be changed, that scared me. I know that from what I have been paying for the last 2 1/2 years I would be paying less possibly but also what concerns me is the level that the tax office would decide would be profit to be taxed. Perhaps the worries for me are the same for others, even if needlessly. But I will certainly find out what I can and will do my utmost to continue to work legally but must say that it does feel like a bad decision in an awful lot of ways to throw this system out of the window.
i only earned about 500 last year ! So even 300 is way too much.
we don't pay 3000 in cotisations - we certainly couldn't afford that. Now OH is 65+ we don't pay URSAAf anymore - when we started it was 299 a quarter but then we had a bad year it dropped to 99 a quarter. We pay social charges at 15% and then that's it
When I started up here I had a 'consultancy' already, following the advice at the tax office I killed it off to go AE to save the then a bit less than what is now €3000 cotisations. Because of a health issue, last year I only earned about 1000 and could not humanly have afforded the taxes, my wife similarly not. So the advice was AE rather than micro enterprise. I checked with people, including one who is an accountant in the state financial system and she confirmed it. No way, I could not afford to be a BIC...
Sarah from what I was told, when I spoke to the Tax Office approximately 3 years ago. It was not good for me to BIC as I would not be earning enough to pay the cotisations that would be demanded of me and make a profit. Some of us only make on average 600 a month so to pay cotisations of 3000 euros would be dire to say the least. For some of us this is a top up source of revenue and therefore I suppose for me it is a part time job that I pay my cotisations on and stay within the system and have money to enable a better way of living. I was told I was not micro-enterprise material. So for me and many of us in the same position it would be a small catastrophe.
Correct me if i'm wrong Sarah but i understand that once moved to a micro there are minimum cotisation's to pay of around 3000 euro's whatever your income.
I'm sorry if I've missed something crucial but why are you all so scared of being BICs? We weren't offered the chance to be AEs when we arrived in 2008. The Centre des Impots decided we were "micro-enterprise" and there isn't anything complicated, in fact I suspect it's less so. We account only at the end of the year when we must give our turnover and the state decides the profit. If you want regime real which allows you to claim all your expenses then you must employ an accountant. Isn't this the way forward for those of you with small incomes?
Whilst you're on facebook you can follow :
Défense des Auto-Entrepreneurs #AENoLimit
Who have posted quite a few times since about the changes since yesterday morning
Trouble is that hoo-hahs do not seem to disturb this government!
Thanks Tracey, I must admit i was always under the impression that you could only be an AE for 2
This is what teh French are saying!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/La-F%C3%A9d%C3%A9ration-des-Auto-Ent...
It's causing a massive hoo-hah.
It's here Pam but I wouldn't be hasty, no laws have been passed yet.
When I started my AE, I already had a salaried position, so it was my secondary activity, not my principal one. When I went to the Chambre de Metiers to change my activity (then to Entreprise Individuale ) the advisor there said various things I thought I had to do - for example, register on the Registre des Metiers, were not necessary as that rule only applied to people doing it as a principle activity and I had registered my AE as a secondary activity.
Although my husband is a carpenter, he is also not on the Registre and the rule was brought in after he started. We visit the Chambre frequently between us and they would not let him register. They agreed it was bizarre but they were the rules and they weren't retrospective. However, the new rules may be retrospective but we don't know as the new rules have not been made yet and if you read the info on Batiactu, they will not even go to Parliament before next September, so no worries yet, just be alert.
Inevitably there will be a large rise in the number of people working 'on the black', and who can blame them, when you try and do it the right way and they make it impossible for you to continue, what other option do they leave people. Very sad.
We are both in it up to our gunwales then. I have a dribble of income that does not justify any other kind of arrangement. Just phoned a friend to see what his reaction is and he had not heard or seen a thing but is looking now. When this happens, as it clearly will, he is in deep doodoo too. He has been grumbling about things for ages, indeed waiting for our children outside school yesterday he said that he does not know why he is staying in France. His wife feels the same. She at least has pretty good English and a bit of Spanish but as we were chatting he said he would like to improve his little bit of school English with me. When French people who are both quite local and certainly until recently would never have considered there being any other world than the one they know here start feeling this way I simply wonder what the French government think they are doing. They will kill enterprise on the one hand and people who have 'unconventional' but legitimate means of earning incomes are scuppered on the other. Madness.
I have been an AE since 2010, as a bit extra as a stay at home mum. I have had very little work (i haven't even made 1000euro's a year) and i now think it would just be easier and safer all round for me to close the enterprise down.
Can you give any advise on how to do this, my French is not very good either.
Thanks
Hi Tracy, just wanted to be clear, you say 'I started my AE in 2009 as a secondary activity, so many new rules on't apply to me', does that mean that anyone that started before they bring these changes in can continue? Or is that what you mean regarding the retrospective, that they might decide that anyone that has been an AE for two years plus will have to change to another system?