Hi SFN-folk,
I have been offered fulltime employement, which in itself is excellent. Here is the rub - it is a Swiss company.
I have not seen a contract or anything yet but I wondered if there is anybody with experience of this. I am fully domiciled in the French system and up until now have paid my taxes, social charges, etc to the French authorities.
I am currently an AutoEntrepreneur but coming to my third year (and with the dreaded professional tax looming, it is time to get out). So normally you would think transfer back to CPAM, carry on declaring tax as before (well, on the main sheet and not the 2042C but essentially the same) and that would be that.
However, I am reading on various places about having Swiss healthcare insurance (even though I am in SouthWest France and unlikely to go except for odd meetings, etc).
Is there anybody who has been through this? I would value any tips before I get into negotiating mode.
Thanks,David
Thank you Theo,
I have been in France just over 9 years so I suppose I have a small French pension but I have a private plan also. Tax and healthcare are the two things on my mind. I think the healthcare is sorted although thanks for the mutuelle tip. It seems whilst there is a plan available, my situation will demand I make my own arrrangements and be compensated accordingly. No big deal.
Swiss tax sounds great! I remember in my naivety when we were first here I paid a small fortune in tax the first year. Then I got some help to the point it came down and down and my final "employed" tax bill was about a third of what I paid the very first year! French national sports - cycling, rugby and tax avoidance.
If you only have paid into French system for the past 3 years, you are certainly better off going for the Swiss option. Its is as Brian writes. French pensions are not that breathtaking even if you have paid for 20 years or have worked as a fonctionnaire. You will be paying tax in Switzerland, which is not so harsh then here as you live in France. And your health insurance you can do with Henner, a Parisian insurer with whom I never have had a problem when it came to reimbursements. So instead the minimum of 4500 p.a. you will only pay +/- 1200 here.
Gentlemen,
Many thanks to you both for your excellent replies.
Steve, you nailed it with the search term. That leads to a site www.frontalier.org which is a good resource although some of the web designers here will throw their hands up in horror. Tons of information, tightly packed on few pages. I am wading my way through it.
Brian, the good news seems to be that one joins a social regime called CMU which is part of (offers prayers of thanks) CPAM. Having taken 2 years for the RSI to get my AE status properly sorted and finally acknowledge I might actually know that woman with the same surname that has lived in my house all these years, it will be a pleasure to say goodbye to them and deal with the very reasonable CPAM people - certainly in dept 47, although the head office is way down in Agen, we have a little sub office in Marmande where a) they are helpful and b) the left hand does talk to the right hand in that you do what they tell you and their colleagues in Agen agree that was the correct course of action.
Then it will be a question of a French mutuelle to top it up for the dentist, glasses and other things an old person like me (thank you daughter dearest) needs.
All the best...
My wife and both daughters are Swiss. Healthcare insurance in Switzerland is prohibitively expensive and only covers part of the costs. If you have it here (we are in SW France too) you are not entirely covered unless you have a comprehensive package including optical, dental, physiotherapy, etc. It, from what we know from people living in France or Italy and working in Switzerland, is to be avoided and they pay where they live. Unless you live in Switzerland your employer will not stop the statutory payments because they are for residents only, but are essentially only really useful for emergencies (road accidents to cover the ambulance and casualty fees, for instance). So, whilst all of us would prefer to be in that system the simple answer is unless you can afford it and will really benefit from it, then don't bother rather than chuck several thousand Euros at it every year.
I've known a couple of people who work in Switzerland but live in France, one even had rights to French unemployment benfit when he was sacked. You need to google "transfrontaliers suisse france"