EuroTrash

I got so alarmed by this thread that a few weeks back when I bumped into our friendly mayor, instead of exchanging the usual chit chat about what a bad summer it has been and how nice the flowers in front of the mairie are looking, I blurted out "do you know how much the taxes are going up here because in some parts of France they seem to have gone up enormously?" He looked a bit taken aback but quickly recovered and said smoothly non non, just a very tiny little increase, it had to be raised a bit but nothing to worry about. TF arrived today and it's gone up almost 100 euros :(

Am I missing the point here but I don't see why you are so concerned about HMRC wanting you to prove that you were in the UK when you did the work. It's to their advantage to tax you on it, so I'd have thought they'd take the money without creating problems. I'd be more concerned about the French fisc wanting you to prove that you weren't in France, since it's them that are losing out. I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for trying to pay tax that wasn't due. Another point that occurs to me is, if you don't come clean this time and get yourself under the correct regime, then this problem is going to crop up every year until you do. By your own admission the work WAS done in France, so I don't quite see how your scruples will not let you fail to declare it, yet don't seem to bat an eyelid over declaring it wrongly which as far as the French impots are concerned is probably almost as bad. As for worrying about the NIC agency jumping on you, I wouldn't - they are so slow to respond that you will probably have retired by the time they get round to doing anything. They have recently written to me about a query dating back 18 months.

I had a 'message' when I logged to my CA account recently, informing me that I would in future be receiving statements by email, with a link to click if I wanted to change this. I didn't click the link as e-statements suit me just fine. This was CA-Normandie. So just make sure you don't have any messages - easy to overlook.

Just a tactful heads-up - the fact that you will be working from your house in France, if you're not planning on being tax resident/registered to work here, is not something you will want to shout from the rooftops. So keep it fairly quiet, and don't, for instance, try to set up business account with Orange.

Thing is - you're not really paying in advance, are you. At least not to any extent. You're paying-as-you-go. It just seems like a poor deal because you have the opportunity to pay in arrears. But there needs to be a pay by instalments option and you can't really expect them to let you start paying for Jan-Dec 2011, in 2012. As for what if you die mid-way through a year, well you will still owe the money for your 'unexpired' months and I can't see la RF letting you off just because you're dead ...

Or indeed by the hike in property taxes.

Don't ANY of the stations between your local one and Paris have suitable parking? Out of Paris would be cheaper and safer surely. You could catch the train part way and then hop off and into the car, vice versa on the way back to Canada.

Assuming you meant 3-4 hrs and not 45mins - is this the sort of thing? http://www.cazin-immobilier.com/b901056_u5-dans-une-ville-tous-commerces-maison-de-ville-avec-courette-et-dependance.html (sorry you'll probably have to cut & paste, my browser can't seem to do urls on this site)

Please post their reply, Sara, it will be interesting. I think lot of us would like for it to be proved legal though it's hard to see how it can be. Also somebody asked how you manage to keep a car registered with DVLC when your permanent address is in France, that would be interesting to know as well?

What puzzles me is WHY people in Britain expect France to be crime-free, cheap to live in, etc, etc. And then come down on it like a ton of bricks when it isn't. As far as I'm aware there aren't the same pie in the sky expectations of Germany, Spain, Italy etc so why France? Especially since last time I spoke to someone who was preparing for A-level French they were preparing to discuss a text about homelessness, immigration and other social problems in France, so it's not as if they're taught in school that France is the land of the unicorn.

So basically it's a question of who makes the laws is in France, is it Bacchus Insurance based in the Loire or La République Française?

If you do forget the key, you can normally retrieve it from a computer that has it stored, by using the 'show password' facility - this will show the characters instead of the ***** that appears by default. Changing the admin password - to something you will remember, bearing in mind you might not need it again for years - is also very wise move. Edit - Sorry I was responding to Pierre's post. Probably you are right about if you supprimer their computers but I don't know, never tried it. I'd still say it's safest to change the key.

It's probably OK, tend to find that every machine that has ever used the livebox stays recorded until you delete it. If you delve around you will find the place to change the key. Once you've done that, no more worries - once they log off, they won't get back in. If you think they're logged on right now, reboot the livebox and that will kick everyone off.

You type the number in the search bar at the top, where you would type a web address. No www or anything, just the number.

Type in the url 192.168.1.1, this will take you into your livebox software and you can change the settings from there. You can also see who is connected to your livebox. I think the Admin password, if you need it, is normally admin unless you have changed it.

I don't know about on flyers but I don't recall ever noticing these details on websites? As of this year they all have the diagnostiques in any case which tells you its energy efficiency so quoting annual average fuel bills as well would seem a bit pointless. But I know that in the UK house adverts give you the council tax band so maybe estate agents do this because British viewers expect it.

??? The system, if the broker wants to use it, is to issue stickers for 1 month at a time until re-registration is complete, and only give you the sticker for the full term of the policy once the French reg. no. has been issued and they have a copy of the carte grise. Pretty foolproof as you can't go around with an expired sticker so you have to keep going back to explain the delay and beg for extra time.

"But for any person who is buying it, that tax will become their concern." It will indeed but I don't see any need to make reference to taxes in a property advert, in fact I think it would be far better not to. If they want to know, they'll ask.

Haven't read all this thread so this may have been said before but but what leapt out at me is (1) are you sure about saying 'taxe d'habitation depends on your income', this is simply not true for second home owners, (2) p-l-ease, 'One of its assets IS' not 'one of its assets ARE'. Too many words, too few headings to help you skip through all the text, too personal, sorry didn't do it for me.

Sid - we seem to be going round in circles here - it has already been stated that there is no French company on MID. So you are asking a hypothetical question to which presumably the hypothetical answer is yes. But that has nowt to do with real life.

Any of Fred Vargas' 'polars', though her earlier ones were best IMHO. I'm suggesting these because she is exceptionally good at dialogue, her characters use lots of colloquial expressions. The books are very well written and lively, and the characters and the stories are gripping (if you like clever detective stories) so even if you don't understand every word or even every sentence, as long as you can hang onto the plot you'll keep reading to the end.

Ok point taken and apologies if I jumped to the wrong conclusion. It was just the way the tune changed from "UK road tax has run out" to "it is currently SORN'd" that seemed to put a different slant on it.

As I recall, even when you have been issued with your new number and have a temporary registration certificate from the Prefecture, you can drive in France with that but still aren't allowed to take the vehicle abroad until you have the actual carte grise. Blaming the red tape in this case, when so many rules appear to have been broken, is a bit of a cop out methinks. SORN'd when not off the road? Driving around in a car with no MOT and no CT? Been in France long enough to change the insurance over but not made any headway in re-registering? Can't help wondering: did you have any intention of doing anything about re-registering, had you not needed to go back to the UK?

And have you sent in the paperwork to inform DVLC that the vehicle has been exported? If not, then regardless of anything else you can be fined for having allowed the tax to expire. Every UK-reg vehicle has to be taxed or SORN'd continuously.

OK some women like having babies, there are all kinds of things that people like doing but that doesn't necessarily give them the right. Sorry but I don't see it as socially responsible, or clever, to produce 10 children when you're not in a position to support them. I'd give medals to the people who have lots of children AND bring them up properly without expecting the state to do it for them. From the looks of things it's not workers that the future is likely to be short of, it's jobs. Each current benefit claimant producing ten more potential future benefit claimants - because research has shown that this is a recurring pattern - is not what the UK needs. IMHO.