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Working in UK from France


idun
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I have been looking at another thread bout someone becoming a French resident with a UK company.

And it made me wonder as I know some one, with a gite business in France and it is all registered, but they also work from their french home for a UK company .... online. And are happy because their health care is sorted in France.

There was a poster called coco years ago and they were told that if they wanted to do that they would have to register a branch of the business in France and french cotisation 's etc would have to be paid. Coco did not do this and stopped working for the British company, as far as I can remember.

So what is the score? I have tried to look this all up, but I cannot make head nor tail of it.

Is this person I know not doing things right, getting their UK salary paid into a UK account, no idea about stoppages in the UK, or tax.

And who would police / monitor this?

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Well on the face of it, from what you've said, then as said in the other thread, this is irregular.

Presumably their UK employer has never been informed that they're living in France/and or is completely unaware of the implications. Which wouldn't be surprising because as has been shown by the Brexit farce there is very little knowledge and understanding in the UK of how freedom of movement and social security coordination actually works.

As for how it's policed/monitored, well it isn't as such, which is why no doubt there is a lot of abuse at present. When/if Brexit happens and Brits no longer have FoM, it will stop because sources of revenue etc will be clarified and checked at the visa stage; visa applicants have to explain what they intend to do in France and where their funds will come from, and the carte de séjour they are issued with clearly specifies whether they are or aren't allowed to work in France. But at present Brits are trusted to find out the rules and stick to them and have minimal paperwork checks so the only way it's likely to get picked up is via their tax return (unless they make an enemy locally who finds out what they're doing and decides to snitch them up to DIRECCTE which can happen but very rarely does). Presumably your friend declares it as foreign earned income taxed at source, so the fisc will assume she returns to the UK to work there, and will apply the DTA and simply invoice her for CSG. However if ever her tax return is chosen at random to be checked, that's probably the first thing they would ask about. It's unlikely she is failing to declare this income in France because I think most people are aware that if they live here they have to declare worldwide income here, but if this were to be the case, then apparently the fisc use algorithms to identify cases where the declared income doesn't match the lifestyle and that could flag up further investigation. Realistically your friend may well get away with it for ever. Unfortunately if she doesn't, then the fisc will also look back at previous years and the longer she's been paying tax and social security in the wrong country for, the more difficult and expensive it will be to disentangle and put right.

PS There is nothing wrong with being paid a sterling salary into a UK bank account, as long everything is being declared properly and tax and sécu is being paid in the right place. The fact your friend is being paid in the UK doesn't in itself mean that there is any irregularity. But, it is very unusual for UK firms to agree to go down the route of paying French social security contributions because of the hassle and expense.
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HMRC link below explains how tax and social security works for employees of a UK company who live and work abroad. As I think was mentioned in the other thread, the only cases where an employee living and working in another EU state continues to pay NICs in the UK is when the worker is a posted worker (ie temporary) or a frontalier (ie physically works in 2 or more EU states). In both these cases the employee must hold the relevant EU forms issued by the UK to prove that the arrangement has been approved by HMRC. Otherwise, they pay social security in the country where they live and work.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/paying-employees-working-abroad

Employee working in another European Economic Area (EEA) country or Switzerland

Special rules apply for these employees.

Usually, your employee pays social security contributions to the country they’re working in. However, they may have to continue paying UK NICs and will be exempt from paying contributions in the other countries where either:

the work abroad is not expected to be for more than 24 months

they normally work in 2 or more EEA countries

If this is the case, apply to HMRC for a Portable Document A1 (or E101) for the employee so they can continue to pay UK NICs. This will also be evidence that no contributions are due in the other countries.
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Yep, and further back still there was the haulage company that actually did have a base in the UK, but it got picked up because it had a French phone number on its website and it was proved that the wife had been taking bookings and doing admin work from the couple's home in France. For every case that gets picked up there must be many hundreds that don't but that is no consolation to the unlucky ones that end up with 100s of 1000s of euros fines or even in prison.
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@BinB but Idun said " they also work from their french home for a UK company .... online. " - didn't mention dividend. That was the other thread. You could be right on that one, it wasn't clearly stated beyond "We have a UK-based company which provides the majority of our income" which as you say could mean dividend only.
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Thankyou very much for the link. Very helpful.

I had looked on the EU web site, and as usual found zilch, found other things unrelated that interested me though.

Apparently this friend is doing everything properly and it has nothing to do with their UK employer, they can do as they please.

So I shall bow out and IF there are consequences, will give a proper gaelic shrug and say 'kes tu veut'[Www].

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