Lavie

Could someone please confirm: a 'micro bic' is a small business with turnover under 29,000 euros (unless running a gite or b&B) an 'enterprise individuelle' is a one man business with a turnover more than 29,000 which involves TVA payments so what is a 'profession liberale' as mentioned by Will earlier? As i can't even see this mentioned on the APCE website  

Ive never seen the magazine mentioned, but this site shows the locations of speed cameras in france http://www.securiteroutiere.equipement.gouv.fr/infos-ref/regles/csa/csa.html

From the APCE site: "If you are the manager of a One-Man Business, the majority-shareholder* manager in a SARL (Limited Liability Company) or the majority-shareholder manager in a EURL (Partnership): You come under the non-salaried worker system. You must necessarily join the following 3 social security funds: CANAM (Caisse National d’Assurance Maladie) [National Health Insurance Fund], URSSAF [Social Security Contribution Collection Office] (for family allotments) and a retirement fund, either the ORGANIC (tradesman), or CANCAVA (crafts), or UNAPL (the professions). The contributions vary between 27 and 35% of the income." My questions are: How come so many past posts say social contributions are around 50% when this doesn't seem to be the case? Am i missing a charge somewhere? and Peter said: "Your tax / social costs are a proportion of your taxable profit - no profit = virtually no contributions."   Again, many past posts say that hefty social charges are paid upfront - even before you've made any profit - and any adjustments re over/under payment are made the following year (which doesn't really help if you've just had a bad year!) So you basically have to pay high charges irrespective of your profit. Could someone please clarify which is correct?  

Have recently read on another site a rather worrying article about squatters in France and their rights and how they cannot be evicted in winter and how the real owner has to keep on paying the utility bills etc. This article descrided the situation of a Frenchman who moved to the USA for a year or so and then found his French property was taken over. (and the locks were changed) Now there are 1000's of holiday homes in France, owned by UK residents that sit empty for most of the year. Does anyone know of a case whereby a holiday home has been taken over by squatters? Or is this just a 'scare mongering' article? Either way, its got me worried!