We are British Expats living in France under the Brexit Agreement, paying our taxes in France.
I have recently attained UK pension age and got a S1 along with an dependant S1 for my wife who has a few years to go to an S1 in her own right (she will be a UK pensioner on full pension) Congrats to the Pensions department it all went very smoothly.
When we registered the S1s at CPAM my wife was told she had to de register as a Mico- Entrepreneur and as she had not had any work for a couple of years ( she is a scientific Consultant) she had no problem with this.
However last month the Irish Gov came up with a bit of work (about 3KâŹ) which will be taxed at 20% (professional services withholding tax) in Eire which my wife has been reclaiming from the Irish whist an ME. Then paying the going rate to France as an ME
There is no guarantee of this work but it might happen every year there is also the possibility of EU work as well.
Any ideas on how this should be declared on the French Tax forms and can we protect our S1 non payment rights of Social Charges on my wifeâs University Pension and my UK State Pension?
Of course she can work but this will automatically invalidate her S1.
The S1 was issued on the basis that she is economically inactive and is your dependent. If she starts working again she will no longer qualify.
I think she will have to work out which will be most beneficial. Either she continues to be economically active and is treated as such, or if she feels it would be more advantageous to keep the S1 then she cannot also work.
Thanks but if she works will that invalidate my S1 as the household is treated as a whole will we just divide the household income in two and pay social charges on one half and none on the other half?
If she has previously had an ME then presumably has previously paid cotisations so has already built up some trimestres for a French pension? If sufficient to actually get a pension, however small, then France will be her competent state and she may already be ineligible for an S1 in her own right.
The problem is that this is professional income, so she would have to declare professionally through her ME and pay cotisations. Except for very limited categories (a few ÂŁÂŁ from vide grenier or non-professional gĂŽte) you canât work in France without declaring it professionally. Which my reading of the rules then also means your household is ineligible for S1 cover.
You need to dig through the rules about split declarations, but this is complex. However given how patriarchal France is there may be some little known exception if the wife is earning not the husband!!
I see no reason why your S1 would be invalidated. They are issued on an individual basis and if you qualify then you doâŚ
I have no idea how the social changes would be calculated on household income where one spouse has an S1 and the other doesnât, but I imagine there is a formula. Sounds like a question for the tax office?
What would happen if the person who was entitled to an S1 in their own right as they were already collecting a pension, then took up paid work in France after that? Would that change their competent state?
I can see though for a dependent person who has dependent-type S1, who then finds some work, this could get messy. A pity though to lose that personâs productivity. Iâd maybe consider doing it on a charitable basis or maybe donate my services to another organisation or company.
Itâs not something that is valid or is not. Itâs a question social security coordination which sets out the rules for deciding which country is responsible (your competent state). You can have a perfectly valid S1 but if something changes and the UK is not longer your competent state then thatâs it.
Well that is exactly what I mean by âinvalidates your S1â - something has changed which means it is no longer valid. I did not mean that it invalidates it retrospectively, just that its validity comes to a stop.
As I understand it, the way it works in practise in France is that there is a code on your cpam record that indicates your route to healthcare. You can only have one route, and there is a kind of pecking order. So if you have an S1 and you become self employed then your S1 code is automatically superseded by the self employment code. If you are self employed and you become employed then your self employment code is automatically superseded by the employee code.
That being the case that would explain why
because as long as her route to healthcare was coded as self employment, they would not have been able to code her as a S1 holder.
I agree with JaneJones.
I doubt that the UK ever does any follow up checks once the S1 is issued but if I am correct in what I said in my previous post, France would pick it up automatically because CPAMâs system has build in checks and will not allow a person to be simultaneously recorded as working in France and also as an S1 holder covered by another state because they do not work in France.
Agree with Sandcastle, the coding on your attestation is the manifestation of your route to healthcare.
I canât find anything that gives an answer to the âhouseholdâ issue. So it would most likely be a matter of whether employment (France as competent state) trumps the inactif s1 partner (UK as competent state.
The most likely scenario to me is that while she is/was working then France is competent state, but once she stops, as long as she has not built up enough trimestres to get a French pension, then can get her S1 and yours would most likely be restored too.
So is the 9.7% extra charge on all your income more or less than what she would earn. And if more does the other psychological benefits of working outweigh this?
Get a cauldron, a few chickenâs feet, hair of a dog, and a flower bud picked at dawnâŚI think itâs a magic art!
OH did one dayâs work (yes, 1!) for a friend in his vineyard, all fully above board with his SS number noted down in vineyard register, although he did not get paid. When he got to 62 he got a cheque for 4⏠in the post, for his retirement! Stating paid in full as below the minimum for an ongoing pension.
(I think the base number is 120 trimestes, or 30 years - but you get a minuscule pension after much less than that)
if 75% of the consultancy work is dome in Ireland, then it wouldnât affect any S1, in fact entitlement for wife would be both as a dependent and as a frontier worker (maybe not regular enough though?..)
The âwhich state pays your pensionâ issue was discussed in another thread - I recall a small france pension did not usurp a different countryâs pension (I recall Belgium?) - could be wrong here
Perhaps for a full pension?
I had 39 trimestres and topped it up to 40 via my uk contributions which gave me my french pension.
France was my competent state as last worked here.
I still had enough years in Uk for full pension so now receive 2.
40 trimestres earns me a french pension of around 2000 euros per year which is gratefully received.
I do not think it is quite that simple.
In order to be officially classed as a frontier worker you need the correct papertrail. You or your employer must request a workers S1 from the country in which you work and your application must be approved. Not all applications are approved. If yours is, you will then pay national insurance contributions in that country.
You cannot simply decide off your own bat that you qualify as a frontier worker if there is no arrangement in place for you to pay national insurance and you have not been issued with a workers S1.
I think not because if Ireland has issued her with a workers S1 as a frontier worker, she cannot also have a second S1 as a dependent!
Which state pays your pension is however a different question from S1 entitlement. I imagine many expats receive a part or even full UK pension but are not entitled to an S1 from the UK.
I believe it is an EU scheme, I suppose it is essentially part of or an extension to the social security coordination, but as you say it would be a long haul.
I thought I had queried this but I cannot see my post! Apologies if I am repeating myself.
I am not sure there would be a âhouseholdâ issue because although taxation is on a household basis, health care is done on an individual basis.
There must be many couples who have different competent states because one partner works in another EU state and the other partner works in France. Hence the cross border partner would be entitled to a workers S1 whilst working and a retirement S1 upon retirement, and the partner who works in France would have no entitlement because their competent state is France.
Yes, weâre looking into some sort of mix and mash too in a few years time.
I have a small UK pension, and even smaller French pension and pretty well a full Irish pension, due to the way the years panned out. Ireland is my competent state (not sure if thatâs because it was the last place I worked or because itâs the largest pension). I claimed each pension separately with documentary proof of my contributions in the other two jurisdictions. My wife will receive her state pension from Ireland in due course but sheâs currently has an Irish S1 based on being my dependent (bit of a demeaning and inaccurate category, isnât it?).
She will start receiving her occupational pension in 2024 and then we will have a dilemma because from the Irish authorityâs point of view she will no longer be a dependent, so not entitled to an S1, but we pay our tax/social charges jointly in France, so we need to make sure that we only pay health charges on her portion of the income.
All this EU stuff is great, itâs just the complexity thatâs an issue. There should be some rules based questionnaire that pops out the right answer based on input.
It had not occurred to me that simply starting to get a pension of your own your own meant you are no longer a dependent and disqualifies you from the S1 but I suppose it is logical looking at it that way because if you have a UK S1 due to being dependent on your spouse who is a UK S1 holder, then when you start receiving your own UK age pension you also receive your own S1.
But, when she starts receiving her Irish pension she will be entitled to an S1 with that, no? If you look at it that way it no longer seems logical, because once she is getting her own Irish pension, the fact that she is also receiving an occupational pension will not disqualify her. So why should it disqualify her whilst she is piggybacking on your S1?
As you say it is horribly complex.
