keith

Well,  we're going to be talking to the accountant next week about whether setting up the french company is really going to save me money,  or just leave me caught under the french equivalent of IR35.  I'll let you know what happens.  Although on the surface it does appear to do so,  there are some complications - like the uk company now want to make me a shareholder!

I think that just moves the problem - I'll need to become a sole representative of the uk ltd company instead of a sole representative of  the existing company in London.  And I'll be taxed and French NI'd on the dividends and as far as I know (I'm not sure though),  the cotisations on dividends are more than on salary as it's regarded as unearned income. What I really need is some kind of productivity bonus or profit sharing scheme that attracts reduced social payments - anyone know of one?

Actually my UK salary is already grossed up to cover the cost that my employer would have had to pay if I was working in the uk.  However it goes nowhere, compared to what I have to pay in France. I ought to stress that it was my choice to live and work in France,  if he was given the choice, my employer would prefer me to be in the office in the UK but he wanted me to work for him enough to allow me to work remotely in France.  This is why he is flexible on how to pay me my salary (and it is a salary not an invoice) - although he has a fixed budget (made up of my uk salary plus what he would pay in employer's contributions), he is willing to split it any way that helps reduce my costs. Regards Keith

Unlike a lot of people who move over to France, I'm still a wage slave, a software engineer working for a UK company remotely and paying all my tax and cotisations here in france. The way the french government handle this is to set me up as a sole representative of the UK company and make me responsible for the employee's and the employer's contributions. Having been here permanently just over a year, I've discovered, that while my tax bill is considerably less than it would be in the UK, my cotisations more than make up for it, causing me to lose around 60% of my salary in stoppages. Now the company I work for is fairly flexible on how they structure my salary,  so I'm wondering if there are any legal ways that they can pay me, such that I can reduce my URSSAF bill as 60% is just ridiculous. My accountant suggests registering as self employed which apparently saves around 16%, but the risk there is that to do this legally,  I need multiple clients and although I do odd bits of programming work for other people, the government agencies may decide I'm not self employed as I'm receiving a regular income.  So any suggestions on how to reduce my social charges?