EuroTr@sh

nomoss wrote : "I have a friend who bought his first house here with cash drawn on a UK credit card." I was going to say, imagine having a credit card limit high enough to buy a house. But then I remembered that at a certain point when I lived in the UK and was finding it hard to make ends meet, I did the thing of taking out end to end credit cards to take advantage of the initial interest free period. If you kept shifting the debt from one card to the next you could get away with making the minimum payment each month and pay no interest on the outstanding balance. I did that for years. I never cancelled the cards after I'd "cleared" them, and I remember once totting them all up to see how much credit I had access to in theory. This was back in the 1980s, IIRC I was earning about £18k pa, and on paper I had a combined credit limit of around 60k split over maybe 10 different cards. Crazy. I can't remember whether or not I had to tell a few porkies to keep getting issued with new cards, but if I did, there were obviously no checks carried out.

The problem is that Bitcoin was designed to be untraceable. Which makes it ideal for money laundering. Of course that doesn't mean that it is ONLY used for money laundering and every transaction is dodgy, but because it's untraceable you can never be sure. To the seller it probably won't make any practical difference if they have unintentionally been involved in money laundering, but probably most people would prefer not to because it would weigh on their conscience. And there's a small chance that you might one day get caught up in an investigation which could be unpleasant. But mostly, it's governments who are keen to crack down on money laundering. And you could argue that stopping criminal activities is also in the public interest. And because there's no way of tracing the provenance of bitcoin and distinguishing between honest users and dishonest users, I guess the honest users will just have to accept the consequences of choosing to use non-transparent payment methods. Their choice.

If you want an answer to your question, ask a notaire. And let us know what he says, as I am mildly interested. As has been said - you don't pay the seller direct. You pay the agreed sale price into the notaire's account, and the notaire transfers from his account to the seller's account the amount that's left after the deduction of any taxes that are due. It's also normal for a notaire to verify the provenance of the funds being used for the purchase (ie track them back to a savings/investment account or a transaction). For one thing France is very strict on anti-money laundering measures, and for another thing the notaire wants to check it is your own money and you're not actually buying the house on behalf of someone else - there can sometimes a temptation to do this to avoid inheritance tax issues, eg an elderly parent might want to fund the purchase of a house for a step child to bypass succession tax. Not sure how these checks would work with bitcoin.

First find a notaire that will accept bitcoin... Every property transaction, whether arranged privately or through a real estate agent, must go through a notaire, who is basically a tax collector for the government. AFAIK the French state does not recognise bitcoin as legal currency so it seems unlikely that notaires would be allowed to deal in it.

"Men who have recovered from coronavirus should abstain from sex in order to avoid passing the virus on via their semen, a new study suggests." Boris won't like that.

"I am confident with my albeit limited scientific knowledge of such matters that you will not it catch from someone jogging past you." I also have very limited scientific knowledge but I must have more imagination than you, because I can imagine a jogger sneezing, I can imagine those droplets circulating in the air for a few seconds, and I can imagine them landing on you if you happen to be very close by. All you need is three elements to come together - a jogger who happens to be infected but asymptomatic, plus pollen in the air to make him sneeze, plus you. The chances are probably against it but it's far from impossible.

"Currently in the system requesting Titres de Séjour but that is in abeyance as no deal has been struck." Citizens' rights were covered in the Withdrawal Agreement, which has been signed. I believe the issuing of CdS is only in abeyance pending the portal being tweaked and reopened in July or whenever. Citizens' rights won't be affected by whatever trade deal is or isn't struck. That's why the EU insisted on getting the WA signed off first, so that citizens couldn't be "used as pawns" - remember that soundbite?!! There are still details that aren't set in stone and will depend on reciprocity, but as far as residence rights go, I think that is ringfenced.

"Sorry, I meant to ask how many on this forum who live here don't have a titre de séjour." There are many possible angles to your question nomoss. I have a titre de séjour but I don't currently live in France. I did live there and I intend to again, but right at this very moment I don't.

"They are also thinking of making a French tax declaration for the short time they spent in France last year." Yikes, just spotted that bit. Good luck with that... have they thought through all the implications? What type of income would they declare - because if they declare any kind of earned income, and they're not registered to work in France and not paying social cotisations, they risk finding they've opened a nasty can of worms. I don't think you should encourage them down that route.

Something I've wondered about. It seems to be possible to identify which viruses are local and which are"imported". I think China was at one time specifying how many of its new infections were local and how many weren't? France is clearly also able to differentiate, from what I've read. But I've never seen it mentioned in the UK. If they knew which viruses had been spread locally and which hadn't, surely that would settle once and for all whether travellers into the UK were bringing viruses in with them. Without evidence to the contrary, it seems overwhelmingly likely that they are. You'd think they would bring out figures to demonstrate otherwise, if they had them. If they don't, why not, since other countries seem to?

"How many on this forum own a house in France, but don't have a titre de séjour?" All the holiday home owners, for a start. Which is why I imagine the border officials will be highly sceptical about Brits who have utility bills and actes de ventes but no avis d'imposition and no carte vitale, especially if they're driving a UK registered car with UK insurance and a UK driving licence, all showing a UK address. What conclusion would you draw?

Thank you Nomoss. I never was any good at those puzzles.

Is it like one of those "spot the differences" games? I copiede and pasted them side by side in Word and I couldn't spot a single difference except the formatting, and one included the "yours faithfully" at the bottome and the other didn't. What's the answer - can some clever person tell me what the differences are?

"Pre-filled are our name and address, bank details. For bank accounts we have to complete form 3916 - we usually list them on a blank piece of paper and send that off with form." Ah well, when you declare online, your form 3916 comes up pre-populated and you simply click Reporter if you want to declare the same account again. Sp presumably it's the same reason why other fields that are pre-populated online, aren't filled in on the paper form. I actually thought it was obligatory to declare online as of this year unless you don't have an internet connection, could be wrong.

Is anything pre-filled in the paper form, apart from your name and address? On the online form for instance the overseas bank account details are pre-filled with last year's info - is that the case if they send you a paper form?

If you declare online there is a screen where you declare a change of address since 1st Jan (because you start by declaring the address where you lived on 1st Jan). I guess you need to find the equivalent box on the paper form. It's important to fill that in.

Do you have income in France since you moved? If you do, you'd have to declare that income as a non resident so yes, on a different form sent to the Service des impôts des particuliers non-résidents (SIPNR). If you had no taxable income in France and you're now resident in the UK, you fill in your income declaration as a resident between 1.1.19 and the date you left and the address you are now living at, and after that you don't have to fill in any more French tax forms.

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