Hi Everyone,
Just been on hold to tax service but got no answer.
My question is if I sell something to someone in the UK, can they make the payment to my Wise account or does it have to go to my French bank account to avoid trouble further down the line? Obviously it is more advantageous to do the transfer via Wise.
Many thanks in advance if anyone can help.
It would depend what you are selling I would think.
A painting. It is in France and buyer is in UK
The tax service will potentially be interested in knowing exactly how much you receive (in euros) but they are not interested in which bank account/route you use to receive it.
Thanks. I guess I was thinking it might look like I was based in the UK if I received the money into a UK account (even though it is just to transfer the money to France). Edited to add I have declared the Wise account to the tax office here, and I am based in France.
The tax office will not know what you have done with the money, and even if they did they would not be interested.
I used to do occasional small consultancy jobs remotely for a UK contact. He paid me into a UK bank and most times I left the money there, to spend on buying birthday presents from UK sources for nieces and nephews who live there. I simply declared the money in the appropriate box on my French tax return. The fisc need to how much income you had, but they do not ask you what you did with the money.
In any case if you are a painter or an art dealer then presumably you are registered as such in France and so it will be clear that your economic activity is based in France.
I’m not sure that the tax office here would be interested in someone selling a painting unless it’s a business transaction.
You are right of course, unless it is high value and will attract capital gains tax. I assumed it was a business transaction or why the question but looking again there is no reason to assume that.
Just to clarify yes it is a business transaction and I am registered as an artist in France. It is a very small painting and won’t be attracting capital gains tax!
Previously I was paid into my UK account when I sold to the UK but from 2021 I didn’t anymore as declaring the account as being strictly personal and not business to the French tax office felt like a better division of things. Also it just seemed too complicated to sell to the UK market after Brexit finally kicked in.
Not sure how relevant this is to your situation, but my wife sells her paintings around the world through Saatchi’s London contemporary art website; they handle the sale, export and import, take their commission, then finally pay us the balance, so we class this as UK income.
Thank you for your reply.
I guess to avoid seeming like that is the case I should probably be paid directly into my French account. The painting was made in France, will be shipped from there and I am based in France and it was a direct sale.
But it is interesting you say that. When I sell a painting via a gallery in Belgium it still counts as part of my French income, but there isn’t the exchange rate to worry about.
Maybe (in a very roundabout and unclear way) I have been wondering if you have UK income do you need to compete a UK tax return?
No, your query’s not ‘unclear’, but because I have one university pension that is classed as a ‘government pension’, tax is deducted at source in the UK. But, I’ve also got another university pension which isn’t classed as a government pension so is taxable in France. Simple n’est-ce pas ? !
However, in our situation, because of the differing tax regimes it’s advantageous to pay as much individual tax as possible in the UK, rather than as a ‘two person tax unit’ in Franc, but of course that might not be the case for someone