cooperlola

The only person I know who's done this is a bloke - in fact he takes holidays in these places.  I can't think of anything more boring myself.

[quote user="NormanH"] It had an effect so that I became the 'mug' I am now.... [/quote][:D]  Better a well-meaning mug than a cynical, unfeeling b*****rd perhaps? I remember my great aunt once telling me that my father read A Piglrim's Progress when he was 6.   As he was an atheist through and through for most of his life, clearly it did not have the desired effect.  I was made to read the bible at school too - was this a religious conspiracy?  Not that that worked, either!

Sorry to hear that, Paul.  She was a sweetie.

Castorama sell chaux blanc if you have one near you, Yonner.

I've never got the Banque de France rate for the day either, even from the direct pension tranfer, but it's still the one I use since, afaik, that's what the regs say.  I can't be bothered to mess around with "averages", "official rates" etc, since it took me precisely 10 minutes on Monday to convert our 26 pension payments for the year using the BdeF exchange rate table for 2011 and a calculator.  How many different income streams does everybody have which apparently makes the legal way so difficult?  Or is it just an attempt to pay a bit less tax if possible?

[quote user="Cat"] My Dualit has been going strong for 12 years too. Did you seen the film  The Lightbulb Conspiracy (trailer) about planned obsolescence that was shown on TV recently?  Full film here [/quote]Don't get me started on ruddy lightbulbs.....[:-))]  

Oh, well done.[:)]

Norman, iirc, this has certainly been standardised for the purposes of tax but whether estate agents are obliged to follow that lead I'm not sure.  I'm sure the height's been discussed on here recently.

My 12 year old Morphy Richards still works as it did the day we bought it.  Does that help? 

[quote user="John Brown"]Can you bail out of filling the on-line form if you are not sure if its filled in correctly and go back to the paper version [/quote]Until you get to the end and sign it off, you can pull out of the process.  Once submitted, you can make alterations but I reckon you're pretty much stuck with the on-line version once you have "signed" it. I c*cked it up last year and corrected it, no probs.  Afaik, this is possible up until the submission deadline.  Even so, a plea to the impots office and they'll change it if it's wrong (or if they are.)  I do the same thing every year - for the first three on paper and since then on line - and yet  every other year they try to tell me I don't owe France any tax then after a bit of back and forth they agree to take my money.  They'll always change it after the fact if the result is wrong, in my experience.

My mistake - I thought you referred to my previous post about Christmas.  Doh.  They were just examples off the top of my head - I didn't exactly look them up.  Indeed - how could I forget that one?[:-))] This May I'm very glad about the holidays as the builders will take a couple of days off.  I'm absolutely exhausted with all the banging and crashing that's going on whilst I sit in a corner of the sitting room marooned with my laptop.  Can't wait for my long weekend off.

Albert (the Info Gypsy) - amongst others of course - is an absolute whizz on AE and has most of the t-shirts.  Hopefully he'll look in soon and post his thoughts.  Good luck, whatever you do.  

[quote user="andyh4"] You can only loose 2 Coops - as we did last year.  Ascension Day and Whit Monday are fixed as a Thursday and Monday respectively.  Also all those "ponts" are just a days holiday (at least they are for me) and whether I take it on 30th April to make a long weekend, or in the middle of a week, at the end of the year makes no difference at all.   The impact on holiday traffic is however well made - ergo I shall be staying at home. [/quote]2, really?  May 1st, VE day, August 15th, December 25th, Jan 1st, November 1st - is that Tousaints?, I always forget - all have the potential to move, don't they?

[quote user="Gardian"] [quote user="JohnRoss"]Yes thanks Gardian I can see the logic of what you are saying. One can forget the sale of bond units conversion as the investment was in Euros not sterling and is paid in euros. Taking the rest of our income you seem to be saying use the rate we got on the lump sum transfer of 1.135 for the rest of our income regardless of how much we transferred. I take then you would apply this to any interest made on sterling savings accounts as a portion of that would be included in a transfer sooner or later. Have I understood you here?..................JR[/quote] Well, the 1.135 is a number that you can 'hang your hat on'.  It represents what you actually got and you can presumably produce documentary evidence if required. Two other options: use SD's 1.179, which is official and obviously perfectly legitimate or use your local Impot's 1.197 I know which I'd use.[;-)]   [/quote]Oh, OK, let's just pick and choose, why not?  If we receive one amount at 1.135 and the rest we can't be bothered to figure out, let's pick the best average rate from a couple of other sources for the rest.  The key is consistency, surely?  If you use the rate you got on the day for the lump sum tranfer then, imho, that obliges you to use the very same system for all the rest of your income, ie the correct way - look at the Banque de France rate for the date you received any amounts into sterling accounts and add 'em up.  It is NOT the date it was tranferred by the way - it's the date you received the money, in whatever currency.  If you use an average rate (be it the official one quoted by Sunday, or the one from your Impots office) then imho, you have to use that rate for the lump sum amount too. D*mm*t.  Every year I vow I won't join in these debates and every year I get sucked in.[:-))]

As far away from the screaming, bored brats as possible.

You wouldn't necessarily have recognised it, so no apology necessary but here it is: http://services.completefrance.com/forums/completefrance/cs/forums/2706537/ShowPost.aspx It explains it far better than I can (from the bottom of page 1 onwards.)

This is being discussed elsewhere between Norman, Parsnips and others.  In spite of the rule changes, none of the notes, nor the new forms, appear to have been adjusted to reflect the changes.  SD did rewrite the FAQs and they are correct, according to the law.  However, some tax offices last year did not accept the changes but some did, iirc (this doesn't affect me personally.)  Thus you have a straight choice - ignore the changes and complete the forms according to the notes, or do them according to the law.  As Norman said elsewhere, at least if you follow the notes and it's wrong, you can defend your position as you clearly did as you were instructed!

By contrast, if these things land on a Sunday you get nowt so it's swing and roundabouts.  Just look at what happens these days in the UK over Christmas - loads of offices etc shut for a week or more, don't they (or they did in my day) whilst here some get no time off at all?

[quote user="NormanH"]A rather good article from a newspaper I don't usually agree with: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9221228/Frances-centre-Left-is-on-the-march-but-so-are-darker-forces-from-the-far-Right-National-Front.html [/quote]Good stuff.  Measured and astute.  I find the woman ultra-scary and am amazed at how much legitimacy her poison has gained.  As I said earlier, short memories.  How easily does rhetoric and gloss seduce.

Having said that, I believe that AE is simply a simplification of accounting procedures.  There's nothing to stop you, afaik, opening up a business under another scheme.  It's just going to cost you more, especially to start with.  It's just my point of view but I can't imagine that any party (well, apart from the extreme ones) will chuck anybody out who can legitimately earn a living here.  Unless France leaves the EU it's unlikely they'd be allowed to anyway.  It's the to-ing and fro-ing whilst such things are sorted that will be the most unsettling aspect of all this.  As I said before, in your shoes I'd stay put until after the shakedown.  Even then, as the "lifers" know, things can change.  Don't rely on anything staying the same.

[quote user="NormanH"]But where do you see the rate? Is it included on a statement with your transfer?  I could calculate mine as I know approximately how much I should get in sterling and see what enters my account, but never see the rate actually stated anywhere. [/quote]I can't, Norman, I just have to compare it from time to time with the rates on the BdeF website for that day. As an aside, it also makes the process of playing the annual exchange rate game very easy.  I just add up the number of euros I actually got.  Simple.

I was watching one of those 4 in a bed things at the weekend, Idun, and a very posh (over a hundred squids a night for bloomin' Leicestershire - sorry, but not the most obviously tourist-y bit of the UK) b&b had an outward opening main front door.  I was just waiting for one of the guests to go flying like a bowling pin.  I'm not sure I'd be very happy turning up there on my crutches as the door was solid (ie no glass panel.)  Very odd indeed, I agree. But I digress. Spoilt for choice with decent drama from across the pond at the mo (plus one or two UK things which aren't bad).  AND the delicious Mr Oliphant's back on 5US.[:P][:P][:P]

When I was in rehab' my physio went on a training course.  We discussed ultrasound when she came back and she told me that recent research which the expert imparted as part of the course, has confirmed that ultrasound has no proven value as a physio' treatment.  It may have a placebo effect of course.  I don't know if that helps, Wendy, as you may want to go ahead with it anyway but it might save you some cash.  I told my mother this (she was a physio') and she was most amused as she reckoned she had been telling people for years when she was still working, that it was completely useless.  She never got any positive outcomes from using it, even though it was a very common treatment from the 60s onwards.

If you're all into this sort of stuff then I hope you're watching Homeland (also adapted from a "foreign" - in this case Israeli - TV drama) but with a stunning Brit/US cast, great writing and an intricate "did he didn't he, is he/isn't he?" plot.

[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q103/cooperlola/rofl-50476.jpg[/IMG]   Yup.  I too recognise all of those (although I cannot remember ever buying 200 of anything.) We could regale you with thousands of such tales between us, I suspect, but it's the way he tells 'em.