Albert the InfoGipsy
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Posts posted by Albert the InfoGipsy
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Thanks, Norman, but that's for salariés and I've never been one in France.However, according to CIPAV rules if you are over 65 you get taux plein, regardless of your trimestre count, so at least I don't have to worry about that. If I've interpreted the rules and calculations correctly it looks like I'll qualify for 200-300€ per year. Woo-hoo!!!!Sorry to both you and Idun for not replying sooner -- life is a bit hectic here at present.
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Thanks Idun.It's clearly another of those areas where there are different rules for employees, artisans, professions liberales, farmers...According to the booklet I got from CIPAV when signed up as an auto-entrepreneur if you take your pension after 65 then you get taux plein, which (I think) means they calculate what you are due without reductions for the number of trimestres.That said, it involves a calculation of points based on AE (in my case) turnover so as I've only worked a few years I don't get much anyway, but still a bit above the lump sum threshold if I calculate aright.I asked CIPAV for an estimation on Tuesday so I'll give them a week or so yet.When I went in to CPAM earlier this week I started by explaining that I'd been an auto-entrepreneur from arriving in France until the end of last year, but as soon as the nice lady discovered that I had an S1 she brushed the AE bit to one side and told me to just put in my S1 (plus dossier, obviously) for health cover.CIPAV is the caisse specifically for professions liberales whereas CNAV is 'la caisse nationale d'assurance vieillesse des salariés' and I've never been salarié in France.
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Thanks, Norman. You're a gent!Supplementary question, to anyone who can help. What is the standard basic French pension for someone who is fully paid up? I assume that I qualify for about 5-6% of that.
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Having worked, on and off, as an auto-entrepreneur for the last few years I have accumulated the princely total of 9 trimestres of pension rights with CIPAV. Today I've spent a very long time hanging on their queueing system and managed to get through to a conseiller who seemed less than pleased with life.Apparently I'll be receiving an estimation of my pension rights from CIPAV (I don't have any other French rights) sometime soon, when the ox cart gets here from Paris.I'm sure I've seen somewhere that if your pension rights are below a certain threshold you can take a lump sum -- similar to recent UK practice -- but the nice CIPAV person didn't seem to understand my question.Does anybody know if this lump sum information is correct? If so, please can anyone point me at an official Web site to find out more or, at the very least, tell me what the appropriate French phrase is for google searching and asking fonctionnaires questions.This may well have an effect on how my CPAM health cover is funded, so I'd like to get some reliable information.
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How about a Google Images search for "French houses"https://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=681&q=french+house&oq=french+house&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.2033.6110.0.8544.12.8.0.4.4.0.104.618.7j1.8.0....0...1ac.1.27.img..0.12.638.oGpMNIsXoW4
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Food also gets given to the Banque Alimentaire -- this acts as a sort of wholesaler for charities like Croix Rouge, St Vincent de Paul and (at least in our department) also for the social aid operations of the various communes. In fact we service pretty well everyone but Restos du Coeur, who want to keep control of their own supply chain.
We send our vans out every day to local supermarkets like Carrefour and collect quite a tonnage that way. We have to follow the same food hygiene regulations as the commercial operations, so a part of what we collect has to be binned because it is time expired. However, most food is distributed.
The BA also acts as a distributor for food aid from the French state and the EU, as well as negotiating deals with manufacturers.
Les 97 Banques Alimentaires et antennes ont distribué 89 000 tonnes de denrées, équivalant à 268 millions d'euros, à 5100 associations et organismes sociaux. Ainsi, tout au long de l'année, environ 750000 personnes ont pu bénéficier de cette aide alimentaire représentant l'équivalent de 178 millions de repas.http://www.banquealimentaire.org/?prehome=0
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banque_alimentaire
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It's back again! And the address bar shows http://france.meteofrance.com/france/accueil/, which is what I used earlier to get to the genuine M-F site.
I use IE, but my wife has just googled her way to it using Firefox on her Mac and got the same problem.
At one stage I also got a popunder with other 'suggested sites'.
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Looks like someone might have fixed things.
I updated one of my shortcuts but not the other. Now both open M-F normally, one to the national weather and one to the local.
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Having had a further search using google.fr I've managed to find this link that works normally.
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I think the worst one I can remember had the toilet in the bedroom.
No, not en suite. No, not just the washbasin.
IN the (double) bedroom. There was a curtain track running around it, but no curtain.
I was travelling solo and it was only for the one night, so put up with it.
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Is it just me? I have two saved links to Meteo France -- national & local forecasts. Today both of them take me to a site that claims to be M-F, but is entirely in English and where all the links on the page return a 'search not found' message.
The address bar shows http: / /token.meteofrance.com/ ?u=%68%74%74%70%3A% followed by loads more %xx sets (I've added extra spaces to stop the address being shown as clickable). I also get a beep when I reverse out of the page -- no obvious pop-ups or even warnings.
I get the same thing if I get to M-F via googling, so it's not just my links. My other favourites work normally, even ones I haven't used for months, so I don't think it's malware on my machine.
Admittedly it took several attempts to get into here this morning, but that never surprises me.
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I'm old enough to remember the adage 'Never use an even-numbered version of an MS operating system' although DOS 6 was pretty stable. [6]
I think I've used every incarnation of Windows from 3.0 to 7, but I haven't really looked at Win 8, for a variety of reasons. From what I've read so far MS has scored some own-goals in the way it's presented things. The idea that you need to install several third party apps to make it behave in a similar way to earlier versions seems very odd.
Some time ago I decided that rather than staying on the MS upgrade bandwagon I'd make a serious attempt to move over to Linux when I no longer need a Windows environment for professional reasons. With any luck that will be pretty soon.
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Welcome to the forum.
I don't know what tax advantages you mean, so I can't comment on that. AN Other is probably the best person on this.
If you are planning to operate a barge, rather than just having it as a house boat, you'd better do some serious research into the rules about insurance, licensing, inspection and skipper qualifications. This counts double for commercial (including passenger) use.
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Our taxe d'hab came through this week. 20€ a month lower and we got a rebate too.
[:-))]
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Can anybody point me at the French official info about taking a pension as a lump sum rather than as a normal monthly-paid pension?
By my reckoning I might qualify for about 4 trimestres so doubt if I have enough in the kitty to qualify as a Fench pensioner.
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Thanks, Norman
I've been working 50 hour weeks recently so most news is passing me by.
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[quote user="NormanH"]The latest noises about AE might well suggest that CESU is the way to go.
I was paid like this for several students a few years back, and even got points towards my French pension.
[/quote]Norman,
What 'latest noises'? There have been noises about AE pretty much since it started and about 80% of them were never more than noise. It's worth keeping an eye open for the other 20% though.
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My wife is a language teacher and she works both through AE and cheque emploi associative. She was originally with CPAM and about a year after registering as an AE she was moved to RSI (the main caisse for professions liberales. Her pension contributions apparently go to CIPAV.
I am also registered as an AE prof. lib in a different profession.
When she was transferred it took a couple of months for the paperwork to sort itself out, but we've never had any problems with RSI or CIPAV that we are not at least partly to blame for. I made a hash of adding an activity at the same time as we moved house and I ended up with two registered locations, which complicated matters.
My AE cotisations have covered me for ongoing medication for a heart problem and all the costs of dealing with bowel cancer, including 7 weeks in hospital.
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[quote user="Debra"]Albert - I read on that site that a B1 level is required and that a B1 certificate is acceptable proof and as this is the exam two of my boys have just sat I know that there is a written component (45 mins) as well as a reading component (35 mins) along with the listening and speaking components. Another choice, FLI, may not have? Here is a link to the DELF components info: http://www.ciep.fr/en/delfdalf/epreuves.php
[/quote]Debra,
It's a case of there being a minimal language test for nationality. If someone has already passed a more advanced/complete exam then that will presumably avoid the need to take the minimal one.
For nationality, B1 level in speaking/listening is required. In your sons' case they satisfy that by doing an exam that also includes reading and writing. That makes sense because they might need to convince employers that they are worth interviewing, or to do studies that require more than just oral skills.
For people like me there's the option of just doing the bits the government requires for the nationality test. As I'm lazy I'll go for that.
All my comments on the nationality French test relate to Norman's comment about the level, and to try to avoid putting off people who might want to take it but are worried about their reading & writing.
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[quote user="Debra"][quote user="NormanH"]Just as an aside you might be interested to see the level of French now required to take French nationality
http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/F11926.xhtml [:-))]
[/quote]B1 - equivalent of an AS level in the UK. Also, as I said earlier, the level you're supposed to attain to be ready for lycee - or as they put it, by the end of compulsory education, ie age 16.
[/quote]As the nationality requirement doesn't include any written components you can't equate it to a standard academic exam. I'm planning to take it in the next few months, so I'll be able to report from personal experience then.
[quote]Le "TCF pour l'accès à la nationalité française" a été spécifiquement conçu pour ...contrôle de la connaissance de la langue française pour les postulants à l'acquisition de la nationalité française.
Le "TCF pour l'accès à la nationalité française" comprend deux épreuves obligatoires :
- compréhension orale (30 questions). Durée de cette épreuve : 30 minutes. Modalité de passation : salle d'examen collective.
- expression orale (6 questions). Durée de cette épreuve : 15 minutes. Modalité de passation : entretien individuel avec un examinateur. [/quote]
This is taken from the FAQ for the exam: http://www.ciep.fr/tcf-anf/index.php
There's a simulation of the exam here: http://www.tv5.org/cms/chaine-francophone/enseigner-apprendre-francais/TCF-FLE/p-6820-Simulation-du-test.htm
I haven't gone through it yet, but the time allowed (90 minutes rather than 45) indicates that it might be the longer 'full' TCF, which does include reading and writing.
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I'm pretty sure it's the sort of thing that varies from area to area. Your best bet is to contact the C de C and ask if you qualify.
Just for interest I just tried finding something similar in my departement and came up with nothing.
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If there was one person I respected and trusted on this forum it was Debs.
Can't say anything else.
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I was listening to a piece about this on the radio the other day. There is no stated policy of enforcing a 100% switch to generics, but the authorities are aiming in the 80% range, where generics are available.The news item was triggered by a pharmacy that was deregistered for a month because they were consistently dispensing less that 50% generics when the other one in the town was hitting the 80% + figure. This is only the second time ever that a pharmacist has been disciplined in this way.
I used to work for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world (Glaxo), with a wide portfolio of patented drugs. Once a popular drug came out of its patent period it was usuallly cloned by one or more generic manufacturers pretty quickly. Glaxo were not happy about that, but I never heard any statements to the effect that properly manufactured generics were not as good as the original.
I am on permanent prescriptions for four drugs. Three of them I receive as generics, but the fourth is not available in my particular presentation except from the original manufacturer, so I get that.
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[quote user="EuroTrash"]But since all S1s run out in January, and you usually get a maximum of 2 years, seems to me the way to get max value out of them is to work it so you finish work near the end of the year and your S1 is issued as as soon after 1 Jan as possible.[/quote]
I think you're mixing up calendar (& French financial) years that run from Jan - Dec with UK financial years that run from April - March.
as I understand the rules you get
Year 1: from date of moving to following April 5 (X months)
Year 2: April 6 to following April 5 (12 Months)
Year 3: April 5 - Dec 31. (or Jan 7?) (9 months)
You must have paid sufficient UK NI in year 1 before moving, which for most employees means about 3 months' worth.
Assuming that you paye enough NI before departure the only flexibility lies in the exact date of moving which affects the X months in Year 1. 3 months to pay enough NI leaves 9 months in France -- total 2.5 years.
I admit I can't swear to this from experience because I didn't come to france as an inactif. I started a business within 3 months of arrival and it took longer that that for my S1 (E106 then) to arrive.
I do know that the above doesn't apply to the self-employed (sole traders or partnerships) but does apply to company directors, including those who completely own their businesses, just as long as they have a contract of employ and have paid NI as part of PAYE via their company.
French pension -- lump sum option?
in French Finance
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