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As they say, where you sit to do your work


idun
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I understand that anyone employed by a UK company, who actually does their work via their computer in France, comes under french rules.

So you are sat there en plein campagne in France, you log in to your UK company as an employee of that company. What should you have done, they have done so that you have cover in France?

I had believed that the company in question should open a french branch of their company, that is what Coco was told when she posted and opened her b&b in France.  Have the rules changed in the mean time?

Or is there some other way of doing this to reduce the charges, but still cover someone for say health care in France?

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Urssaf has a special service that companies who employ people in France but don't have a branch here, can use to register their employees with urssaf and pay social contributions for them, sorry can't do links on here but it is

http://www.urssaf.fr/profil/employeurs/dossiers_reglementaires/dossiers_reglementaires/entreprise_etrangere_sans_etablissement_en_france_01.html

However, very few UK companies are going to agree to do this, especially when they find out how much they will have to pay. It makes you a lot more expensive to employ that a person who lives in the UK.

What people often do to reduce the charges is, the employee pretends to be self employed, registers as an auto entrepreneur and invoices their former employer. Technically this is fraud but there is a good chance that it won't be picked up on. However by pretending to be an independent worker the employee loses benefits such as entitlement to chomage, that they would have accrued as an employee.
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EDIT

Will someone in authority PLEASE sort out the sh1t that arises when I use the quote button. I will now sweep up your crap.

quote user="Loiseau"

Anyone else having trouble reading this thread?

On my screen, the right-hand ends of the lines are missing, so it's a bit of a guessing game.

Angela

Unquote

Edit: It really should not be necessary for me to correct your bad programming.

Sorry Angela to your question -

Me

The previous post's link is too long for the page and this messes up the pagination.

On the question raised by Idun, there are ways and means:

Form A - but has a restricted timescale - I think now reduced to 2 years.

Employee goes independent as above, but having just one customer is likely to lead to the impots taking action - usually financially unpleasant. There are ways and means round this if the company has more than one registered address they can independently invoice the "employee" - better still if different subsidiaries can do this.
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Yes sorry about that long url, it seems to have screwed everything up.

The worker's S1 or A form is only supposed to be for temporary / fixed term secondments. If it's a permanent move you're not entitled to it, really.

It isn't just a numbers game that decides whether you're an employee or self employed, it hinges on the relationship between client/provider or employer/employee. All to do with the degree of independence in your work, whether you're paid hourly or for delivering certain results, whether it's you or your employer that fixes the fee - employees are offered a pay rate, freelancers submit a devis, whether you bear the financial consequences of any mistakes you make, etc etc etc. You could have three clients and be deemed to be a part time employee of all three, or you could have one client and be deemed self employed. In fact, if you were previously an employee of that company, and you are doing the same work now and the relationship is essentially the same, you wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on in an investigation.

EDIT - previous post - why would the company be invoicing the 'employee'? that sounds the wrong way round to me! or have I misunderstood. But if I do work, I don't pay my client for the privilege of doing it...
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It is what it is and has been so since the last upgrade, its other browsers that have changed.

Whilst I agree with both yours and Dave21478's sentiments that if the forum owners wish to retain members and traffic then they should keep up to date after the FE debacle be carefull what you wish for!

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[quote user="EuroTrash"]Yes sorry about that long url, it seems to have screwed everything up.

The worker's S1 or A form is only supposed to be for temporary / fixed term secondments. If it's a permanent move you're not entitled to it, really.

It isn't just a numbers game that decides whether you're an employee or self employed, it hinges on the relationship between client/provider or employer/employee. All to do with the degree of independence in your work, whether you're paid hourly or for delivering certain results, whether it's you or your employer that fixes the fee - employees are offered a pay rate, freelancers submit a devis, whether you bear the financial consequences of any mistakes you make, etc etc etc. You could have three clients and be deemed to be a part time employee of all three, or you could have one client and be deemed self employed. In fact, if you were previously an employee of that company, and you are doing the same work now and the relationship is essentially the same, you wouldn't have much of a leg to stand on in an investigation.

EDIT - previous post - why would the company be invoicing the 'employee'? that sounds the wrong way round to me! or have I misunderstood. But if I do work, I don't pay my client for the privilege of doing it...[/quote]

You are quite right - the invoices should be flowing the other way round.

However you should not be sorry that you used a long url, the software should cope with that.

It cannot now even cope with getting to page 2 without going through the main thread index.
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"However you should not be sorry that you used a long url, the software should cope with that. "

Well as it happens I've been itching to post another url that I think sums up very well the distinction that urssaf makes between employee and salarié, so here we go

http://aide-creation-entreprise.info/Refus-URSSAF-auto-entrepreneur
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[quote user="idun"]I had believed that the company in question should open a french branch of their company, that is what Coco was told when she posted and opened her b&b in France.  Have the rules changed in the mean time? [/quote]

That has to be 10 - 12 years ago and didn't relate to her b&b, iIrc.

I think Coco's problem related to still being employed by a British company but working from France. I believe the advice she was given (again, iIrc) was to set up a 'branch' of her employers and to pay herself via that company... thus, of course, becoming both employer and employee and responsible for the employer's tranche of social charges as well as those applicable to her salary as an employee. [8-)] [blink] [:'(]

Things have changed - think of AE which started maybe 4 or 5 years later - and the advice was probably wrong then and not be applicable now and certainly not with the advice of a good accountant.

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Coco, had wanted to work for her old company whilst living in France and was told that she would have to open a branch of that company in France. As you say, it was a number of years ago and since then the AE has come in. But as was shown by that link, one has be running a company and if one is only working for one company, ie they are one's sole client, then it is avoiding cotisations and french law about opening a filliale.

I would suggest that anyone doing this was very cautious. And I have heard too many things about french accountants over the years to worry and wonder if the advice is always 'good'. The comments have usually been from french friends and acquaintances. (There have been comments on here too) And when the URSSAF goes after anyone, well, I would not want to be in their shoes!

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I don't know when URSSAF brought in the system as per the first link, whereby companies with no establishment in France can register employees in France online with URSSAF and pay social security contributions for them. That would be the correct way forward today, but of course there wouldn't have been the online service 10 years ago, so if the system existed at all it would have been a lot more complicated in practice.

Alternatively of course there is the 'portage salariale' system, where the portage salariale company acts as a go-between. They employ the worker on an employment contract and pay full employee cotisations for them; they have a supply contract with the client; and they invoice the client for an amount that covers the employee's wage and social security contributions and their own commission. It doesn't save anything, in fact it's more expensive because of the portage salariale's percentage. But it's easier for the UK company to pay the portage salariale company's invoice that if they had to deal with URSSAF and do all the things that French employers have to do. And it's better for the employee than pretending to be an AE because they are a genuine salarié, they get full contributions made for them so they build up their entitlement to chomage, full sick pay, pension rights, and they get HOLIDAY PAY.
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