Taxation years confuse me

thank you everyone that is very clear and helpful :smiley:

That is pretty much how I see myself!

Hi Claire,

I’m a retired academic, not a tax expert and the following advice is simply based on personal experience of having three pensions, only two of which are eligble to be taxed in France

If your UK pension is classed as a government one (you can check this by phoning HMRC overseas section) then it will continue to be taxed at source in the UK, even if you live in France. You’d include a UK tax return and a copy of the P45 with your French tax return.

Furthermore, your pension will be very close to the UK minimum tax threshold, so although you’d still need to make a French tax declaration, if that was your sole source of income, you might not need to pay any income tax here.

By contrast, if you retired early and began to receive a reduced UK state pension, that would be eligible to be taxed here.

Lastly, I find The Connexion’s annual French Tax Guide invaluable when completing my tax return. You can check it out at:-

This is the HMRC list of pensions that are considered governmental and taxed in UK

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/international-manual/intm343040

(And I think you meant P60 not P45)

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Not so - if your income is under 15K OR *you are not sufficiently confident to use the online version", you can still use the paper version. A surprising number do just that. I always add a note on the margin so say that I am not sufficiently IT-literate to attempt it - or words to that effect. (The advice that you can do this is in very small letters in the notes section).

l have always gone to the local tax office, explaining IT illiteracy, plus ignorance of the year’s official exchange rate. They have always been extremely helpful, and many have been as puzzled by the form as me.

Must admit I’m puzzled how forum users seem to be able to fill in paper tax forms, yet claim that filing online is beyond them.
Filing online is infinitely simpler if your circumstances are much the same as last year, because you don’t even see the sections of the form that don’t concern you. You don’t have to worry about whether the format has changed from last year. All you see is the sections that contain the figures you entered last year. If the figure is the same you confirm it, if it’s changed you overwrite it. Once you have your figures ready, it takes literally a few minutes to open your form, click through it and submit it. Less time than it would take you to write a statement saying you can’t do it.

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I can understand your puzzlement… but, none the less… I am not alone in my muppetness …

Obviously, if everything is shown in its correct place there is little else to do… but… from my own experience when needing to change the position of something (not just the figure) … all hell can break loose… :roll_eyes: as per last year…

I’ve no problem with folks being puzzled at my ineptitude… :laughing:

Having the full set of papers in front of me, being able to read everything and consider carefully… that is sheer heaven… better for me than clicking from screen to screen…

What was the issue there, Stella?

Hats off to you - having two entire tax forms (personal and pro) and having to read everything and hunt through them just to identify the very few boxes that concern me, would be sheer hell for me!

Major thing… our income is never in the correct place… last year, when I put it in the correct place (as usual) … that time, it opened a mirror-maze of screens with questions/statements and each step I thought reasonable to take… only put me further into the mire… changing from here to there with no seemingly good reason.

I shall be happier if I can read the paperwork… like a good book… from cover to cover… with everything clearly explained and with each link clearly shown… what totals to put where… etc etc. sheer joy.

and… as I keep saying… last year many thousands of folk had a horrible experience on-line… my Tax lady was most sympathetic…seems it was hell for so many all across France.

You do indeed and I suppose that’s why I keep putting the opposite view to balance things out, because nobody I talk to has ever had a problem with online filing, and most people have been doing it for many years now. I’m sorry but I think “it was hell for so many all over France”’ is scaremongering and I think it’s a great shame to encourage relative newbies to reject the online system without even trying it. The vast majority of people find it extremely user friendly, and it’s what the tax office expects people to do. Of course they accept the need to make exceptions for people who are genuinely unable to use the online system, because France is good like that, but I think that in return people should think twice before claiming this concession when in fact they’re just a bit nervous, or simply can’t be ar5sed.

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I think everyone should be encouraged to try the online system as soon as they can. For most people it is far the easiest option.

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thank you Dr MarkH

Rather than scaremongering… I am simply repeating what the Tax lady told me… there was at least one thing very different in last year’s Declaration which foxed/stymied many many people… and that includes French folk with (obviously/presumably) perfect understanding of what they were reading… :crazy_face:

It is OK for folk to admit if they are unhappy/worried about getting the on-line correct… there is allowance for such situations.

Others may well breeze on through… but that should not make any folk feel they cannot admit their own situation is not quite as magnificent… :roll_eyes: :crazy_face:

Thank you Jane Jones, mine is government your list confirmed it, most helpful.

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I totally agree for folk who find on-line the easiest option… but one should remember that not all folk are in that same situation… :roll_eyes: :relaxed: :thinking:

I’m sure that many things in the online declaration change every year. I can’t remember what I did last year so it doesn’t matter whether it’s the same this year or different. The only screens you see are the sections that you completed previously, they come up one at a time and you simply follow the prompts to confirm that one and move on to the next. If they come up in a different order from last year it makes no difference. That’s one of the beauties of it, it’s not like the paper system where if they change the layout from the previous year you have to work out what corresponds to what.
I would have liked to know specifically what it was that stymied you last year and what the problem is with getting your information “in the correct place” - the online form is prepopulated from the previous year’s finalised submission, so it would be odd if information moved itself into different places from the previous year.
But I’m sure the point has been made and folk can make their own minds up, and importantly, hopefully they’ll approach it with an open mind and not full of mistrust and expecting it to be a nightmare because that approach tends to be self-fulfilling.

One thing particularly… I think it was 20P stymied many many folk… :thinking:

If I could do a “replay” of last year… I would love to be able to show you all… but I cannot… but me and my Tax lady know what happened… :relaxed:

Isn’t an obvious solution to look at the paper version (available online) work out where everything goes and then fill in the online version?

Flicking between screen pages is not that good for me… sometimes makes my eyes go funny. but I hear what you say… and some folk might well be happy to do that. :thinking: