Centre Des Impots

[AlanW]

My wife and I descended to the Centre des Impots in Mazamet (81) on Friday to be told the equivalent of why are you here?  Come back in March and fill these forms out.

He seemed to be interested in our income for 1st January to 31st December.  UK Tax years are obviously different, can anyone tell me a) is there any easy way of demonstrating income for a calendar year which is aceptable to the French authorities, and b) what do they they think of P60s being issued in May, not March.

 

Thank You

Alan

[Ron Avery]

The French do not have PAYE as such.  The tax year runs from January to  December and tax returns are sent out in March of the Following year and have to be returned by April/May time.  They then send you an advice of tax to be paid and you have to pay that by september.  You do not say when you came to France, but if you came here in 2005, you will have a tax form sent to you next year, BUT do not wait, it is up to you to collect one if one is not sent to you.  If you came in 2004, you need to go back and explain this and complete 2004 forms, you may be penalised but normally they are fairly relaxed because you are volunteering payment as such.

Tax offices and officials vary from town to town, some are happy that you are paying tax at all and will accept a calculation of income, ie if you have P60's  they will factor the total to the period they need to use, you can also take pay slips, and French bank statement are very useful because you need to be wary of the exchange rate to be applied if your documents show payments in £'s.  If that is the case,  they will want a £/€ conversion, last year it varied wildly between tax offices, some applied 1.47€ to the £, some applied the French bank's exchange rate on date of declaration, not the Tourist rate, which was far higher than you may have got, others accepted a nominal average figure.

As far as the P60 is concerned, it is not a problem because unless your income in France from the UK varies wildly, it is quite easy to calculate income on a monthly basis and apply it to a calendar year, you can also use payslips if you have them