continuing health cover

[MKT]

for the first 2 years here, renovating house and living on our savings we had health cover with E106. it ran out last Dec and a visit to CPAM had us fill in forms with details of our (then nonexistant) income. They gave us a years cover including the top up bit. This year we have finished the work and rented out our gite at last - and thus earned income (around €13 000) which i assumed we would have to a) pay tax on and b) pay into medical fund and had understood rate was about 10% of taxable income. We can JUST about manage to live off that if careful.

visited CPAM yesterday to ask what to do when curent cover expires on 31/dec and she started into this long explanation that seemed to be

• we are not going to come under them anymore but i need to go to some other office called 'independent workers' and get taken on by them - they will provide my health cover from then on.
• i need a Siret number to get taken on by the 'independent workers' lot. To get this i have to register as a business.

Does this sound right to any of you?

a morning spent reading old threads on this forum about registering as a business leads me to think that i will have to pay about €4000 a year to do this. Clearly this makes it un-doable and i would be better simply to close. However, i had understood health contributions to be about 10% not 45%, so ahev i got it wrong?

I receive the money i the UK, if that makes any difference. if i dont register, but pay tax on the income of course, do i just drop out of the health system? or do i go to docs as normal but pay myself and am not reimbursed or what.

grateful for any light anyone can shed on what appears to be a can of worms Ive opened that is threatening to shatter my dreams of running a succesful but small enterprise renting out my house for about 10 weeks a year.There must be an alternative to registering as a business for someone this size as i dont expect earnings to increase much as years pass either.

Maria

[Clair]

I believe the basic advice to be correct but cannot comment on the figures...

I too derive a small (much smaller than yours!) income from renting out a gîte but I do not pay any contributions based on this.

As I am also employed by my neighbour (and paid with Chèque Emploi Services - CES), it is from this job that my contributions are paid, even though it's only about 55 hours a month.

My understanding is that, had I not been employed, I would have had to register as self-employed.

It would appear you can:

either register as self-employed

or get a part-time job (try Manpower) even for just a few hours a week and get "employed" status.

I hasten to add that both incomes are declared in my "Déclaration de revenus" every year!

Clair