Will
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Posts posted by Will
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As all is above board I think she'd do best to be perfectly open and honest with the tax authorities. Unless she's getting a big allowance it's unlikely she'll be taxed on it.
If she says nothing about it there's a danger that it will be assumed she's doing black market work or evading taxation in some other way, which may mean being investigated by the gendarmes - this is very unpleasant.
Will (50)
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I transfer a regular amount each month from our British to our French bank account using NatWest's Relay system (repetitive payment) - there is also an option for regular payments of variable amounts. Is this what you wanted to do?
Will (50)
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The usual capital gains taxation rules will apply (nominally 16% on profits, you can offset certain improvement work invoiced by registered French artisans plus legal fees etc). If you are French registered then there will be social charges on top, making the tax rate effectively about 26%. The French system does not favour property speculation.
What most seem to do, if French resident, is to set up a company as a 'marchand de biens'. This can have negative tax implications as well as positive ones, it needs to be a genuine property improvement and reselling business to work properly, and I think work on the houses needs to be completed within a certain timescale. You will need to speak to a professional adviser who knows the French system to see if this would suit your plans.
Will (50)
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LAST EDITED ON 26-Apr-04 AT 04:23 PM (BST)
http://www.apce.com and http://www.urssaf.fr are good starting points, as are any of the local chambers of commerce that have their own web sites. What is involved depends on what you want to register as: the requirements for, say, a plumber and an estate agent are totally different. Naturally, both sites are in French although you will find some English language pages.
Will (50)
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Jill - I have to agree with you. We are just a few km from the Mayenne border, and although that's the northern part of the departement as soon as we cross into it the whole atmosphere changes notably for some reason, it just becomes flatter, more open and less populous.
It's certainly charming countryside, and very rural, but if you are looking for 'typically French' (whatever that is) it's not there. The towns are nice though.
Will (50)
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I'm surprised nobody has given you an answer yet.
You can open an account with most French banks as an 'etranger' - some need a French address but others seem happy to let you use a foreign address. However, the Britline service from Credit Agricole may suit you best, there have ben a lot of postings about it so a search on the forums for 'Britline' should turn up the information.
Just a word of caution - you can pay quite high charges for French banking - there is a cost for many things that are free in Britain.
Will (50)
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Not a stupid question at all. I have never seen beam deflectors or headlight masks designed to operate the other way - not even on the ferries from France. So I just have to dazzle everybody when I take my French car to England, which happens pretty frequently. Nobody has complained yet... (still I do lower the beam to prevent dazzle).
Will (50)
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LAST EDITED ON 23-Apr-04 AT 01:08 PM (BST)
I'm afraid I can't add anything, other than to agree it's a very good reason not to use P&O.
I just hope the other ferry companies don't copy this rule.
Will (50)
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Your situation very closely mirrors my own.
Having gone into this very deeply it is a waste of time and money trying to set up a UK company in order to operate in France. You will just have to bite the bullet and register in France, which means you will pay cotisations. There is really no legal way round that.
Forget the people who claim to be able to set you up in business. They are likely to charge dearly for advice (which you can get cheaper, or in our case free, from a local accountant) and then charge again to get you registered. I was quoted 1000 plus VAT plus a further percentage for 'disbursements' for what we achieved with a few phone calls to the local URSSAF office and filling in a single A4 form.
It's a simple process, you will probably be regarded as a 'travailleur independant' and won't have to jump through the same sort of training course, insurance etc hoops that a traesman does - your local URSSAF will be able to advise how and where to register as it depends on what sort of writing you are talking about. As journalists in France are invariably salaried, if that's what you do you may have difficulty fitting in to the self-employed system, but it can be done.
I can't be more specific as all things in France do vary between regions.
Will (50)
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In several cases, if you look down the list of posts you will find that, say, No32 is missing from the sequence - with the threaded discussion format this isn't easy to see, I know. This can mean that the post has been removed.
This won't always be immediately apparent. Because the forum software doesn't allow editing of posts (except by the originator, within a certain time of posting) what happens most often is that a post which might contain, say, an advertising link, is removed. The post is then replaced by another, identical to the original, with the link removed.
Without yet again entering into a debate about the rights and wrongs of having advertising etc on the forum I hope that might provide some explanation. But I have no recollection of anybody removing a post in the example given (I'll probably find now that I did it myself and forgot about it ). What TeamedUp etc says is also quite true; very occasionally the system has a hiccup and things just disappear into the ether.
Will (50)
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I would imagine not - there are personal allowances in France, as in GB, and moreover if your tax bill for the year comes to less than a certain amount (I think about 80) you don't have to pay it - so that should buy a case of fairly decent wine.
Will (50)
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This conversation should really be conducted by e-mail or private message but for the benefit of others who may not have found how to do it:
If you click on the icon above your postings that looks like a person, that brings up the profile of the person who posted the message. Most profile contain just your name - but you can add to this by clicking on the 'user' icon on the forum index page, then choosing the 'modify profile' options.
Users can e-mail or send messages to each other by using the 'envelope' icons above each message.
Will (50)
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What rule is this? Although I've never used Britline I know a lot of people who have, and they have never mentioned any restrictions on travel to France. I'm sure there must be a good reason, but it does sound rather strange.
I am sure a lot of forum users would be interested if you could explain further, Tony.
Thanks
Will (50)
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Having booked a couple of crossings today I notice that the online booking has changed a bit.
You now need to enter the name of the owners club cardholder, as well as the card number.
You now get an extra page where you have to actually decline to buy travel insurance, rather than just tick a box to get it.
The above two things make it a bit more tedious to compare different route, date, cabin etc options.
The good news is that you can book online for larger vehicles - up to 8m long and 4m high which will help DIY removers, horse owners etc.
The bad news is that there is a 3 surcharge for credit card bookings (but not for Switch etc).
The French site is unchanged, as yet. Strangely I tried the same booking (Caen-Portsmouth and return five days later, afternoon crossings with day cabins) on both UK and French sites. The French site quoted 389, UK site 179, but no card surcharge in France.
Incidentally, each subsequent page on the GB site now repeats the details from the first page - e.g. '1 adults both legs'. What would happen if one left one's wooden leg at home? Is there a reduction?
Will (50)
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LAST EDITED ON 16-Apr-04 AT 10:02 AM (GMT)
I heard that story - it was featured on BBC South news. It made me laugh a bit because somebody had organised a party from the Isle of Wight who would go en masse on the boat to Cherbourg for dental treatment that they could not get on the NHS at home - the venture even had a name, Tooth Ferry would you believe.
The rather strange thing was that Cherbourg is in Manche (50) and there was a story in Ouest France recently about the severe shortage of dentists in Manche making it difficult to get treatment. I was in fact reading it in the waiting room of our dentist in Mortain (50) who seems to manage to see you reasonably quickly, especially for an emergency.
As regards payment, you pay the dentist for the treatment and the pharmacy for any medication. Treatment of an abcess and a couple of extractions as a result seemed pretty cheap, while the consequent bridges, counting as cosmetic work, were expensive, but still cheaper than private UK dentists. Residents claim back a proportion via CPAM and topup health insurance.
Presumably if you are visiting and have a dental emergency you can claim the cost back via the E111 form.
Will (50)
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This might be the one you are thinking of - there are other posts, probably lurking somewhere in the archives - I can probably dig them out if you need more info.
http://www.livingfrance.com/dcforum/DCForumID3/3275.html
Will (50)
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You send for the Loan Arranger and Tonto - Hiyo Silverrrr...
Sorry for the flippancy - a more sensible answer is that a French bank is probably the best first port of call. If you are still in England then the French Chamber of Commerce in London gives useful advice about setting up buiness in France.
Will (50)
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5 for a lesson (1 to 2 hours) in groups of 4-6. Proper one-to-one (i.e. individual) would be a bit more.
Will (50)
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I would suggest you contact the nearest office of the Centre Normande de Gestion des Entreprises (CNGE). They are very helpful and have some accountants who speak English.
Will (50)
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It seems hard to believe, but existing conditions have little if any bearing on top-up insurance. Bear in mind that these only cover the 35% or so that isn't covered by your CPAM.
Will (50)
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Which part of Normandy? There are some people charging what I would consider to be extortionate prices for a rather indifferent service in Basse Normandie, so do be careful.
Will (50)
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LAST EDITED ON 11-Apr-04 AT 10:44 PM (GMT)
I think the major expense (assuming the vehicle is already registered in France and thus does not need certificates of conformity etc) is the issue of a new carte grise. You will still need this to register the vehicle in your name, even if it is in the same departement. The cost of a carte grise depends on the CV rating of the vehicle, and seems to vary between departements. We have bought two cars in France - one was previously registered in Paris, the other in Belgium, as well as re-imported a car from the UK which had previously been registered in another French departement. In all cases new carte grises were necessary.
Anybody who has an address in France and can provide proof of identity and address should be able to register a car, though some prefectures and/or dealers still seem to want to see titre de sejour.
Will (50)
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I wouldn't think that there is any need to go through the process of setting up a business if you only intend to work on your own house.
However if you intend to sell it after you have rebuilt it, or if you want to do similar work for other people, then it may well be in your interests to register. But you have to think too of the very high social security cotisations French businesses have to pay.
Will (50)
Extortionate price
in Travelling to/from France
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Because they are vehicle passengers one way, foot passengers the other they are paying single fares on both parts of the journey - guaranteed to be the most expensive way of doing things. Agreed, cabins are over-priced.
It's easy to be wise after the event but if they had wanted to save money they could have booked a five-day return with the vehicle and just not taken the vehicle back - that would have meant a day or two less in France but could well have saved 300-400.
Will (50)