woolybanana Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Perhaps someone can answer the question put by a retiring cousin of mine a day or so ago, svp? I think he has loosely been looking at moving over here. Are retired folk taxed (including social charges) more, broadly speaking, in UK or in France on their pension and investment income?Any thought most welcome, guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Wooly wrote : Are retired folk taxed (including social charges) more, broadly speaking, in UK or in France on their pension and investment income?Any thought most welcome, guys.Girl, not guy, here ..For us it costs more income tax wise to live here but much of this extra tax is offset by the lower 'council tax' payments here. Not that we live in a cheap taxe fonc house as our bill is 900€ this year but it was 3 times that in the UK when we left nearly 15 years ago. Gosh knows what it is now.If you have investment income then this is taxed harshly here including the 'new' tax to replace contributions sociales.So the answer, as ever, is it all depends .. on what kind of income you have and where you live.Edit : We chose to live here rather than there so we don't dwell on the fact that we pay more here. It is a simple fact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted November 1, 2019 Author Share Posted November 1, 2019 Thank you, sue. It seems to be roundabouts and swings, I guess. Dont your tax d’hab and foncière come out to about the same as council tax?The Americans use ‘guys’ to cover all sexes, by the way which is what I was doing. I guess the word ‘people’ could be substituted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Just talking about taxation linked to income:I think that income tax is lower here but if you have to pay contributions to social charges as retired French people do, and potentially British people will have to after Brexit in order to keep Healthcare, then the grand total is a bit higher here. Retired British people don't pay National Insurance contributions. There is also the question of the currency in which income is sourced of course.On the other hand as Sue has said cost of buying and renting accommodation are lower.Local taxes of course a vary very much between town and country, and from region to region so that is hard to generalise.In my case I reckon that I get better services here that I need then I would now in the UK after various cuts; but since France seems to be going down the same path that may not last for long. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pomme Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Again, there might also be the cost of a mutuelle top-up to add into outgoings.Taxe d'habitation is disappearing as long as your income is not too high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritinBretagne Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 My quality of life here is much higher on my retirement income than it would be if I lived where my siblings live in south west England. The big unknown is the exchange rate. If the pound:euro rate dropped to 1:1 things might be different but it would it would have to drop a lot lower than that before I would consider leaving my home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 We may have to move back anyway, and next to no choice really, but I do keep trying to work this out.For the moment pensioners in England get free prescriptions for medication and bus passes which work in a lot of the country.Frankly I reckon that our standard of living is better in the UK. We live very very well here, in spite of income tax being higher. We don't have a mutualist to pay either.The local taxes are kif kif with our old taxe fonc and hab in France.Our water could be cheaper if we went onto a meter, but with major works still on the go, we have left it as it is.And as we get older and probably will be able to do less and and less of those maintenance things for ourselves, like needing joiners, plumbers, decorators etc and they are a LOT cheaper. And already we don't hesitate to employ people to do jobs if needed.I'll give an example, I saw a french house in Brittany for sale. Price OK, but my, typically french from years ago and I would need quite a lot doing to it. I know how much that would cost here...... but if breton artisans are the same prices as Rhone Alpes artisans, it would cost an arm and a leg to update the place. Also one thing that would bother 'me' and does not seem to bother a lot of other people on here, is lack of good regular public transport. We had very basic stuff in our french village and were a lot better off than many people I knew in the region, and yet, it was still very limited. There are lots of things to look at.We all live very differently, but at the moment, I know I am better off in England..... is that quality of life[Www] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Wooly wrote : Don't your tax d’hab and foncière come out to about the same as council tax?No, even added together they were about 1/2 of our UK 2004 council tax . . and we lived in Lincolnshire (nearish to Lincoln) so nowhere expensive ?Recently our commune has put aside demanding taxe d'hab .. not sure why but am not going to complain.The contrib sociales substitute costs us enough .. but it is our choice to live here so we are not complaining, just saying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Idun wrote : We may have to move back anyway, and next to no choice really, but I do keep trying to work this out.Gosh, I find your reply intriguing. Why do you feel you might have to move back to a country you had long planned to leave on retirement . . and did so ?Although I feel, as a happy inhabitant of Bretagne, that it is a great place to live with no need for a level of 400% cover by your mutuelle, as I understand you needed in your previous place in the mountains. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nomoss Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 [quote user="suein56"]Idun wrote : We may have to move back anyway, and next to no choice really, but I do keep trying to work this out.Gosh, I find your reply intriguing. Why do you feel you might have to move back to a country you had long planned to leave on retirement . . and did so ?Although I feel, as a happy inhabitant of Bretagne, that it is a great place to live with no need for a level of 400% cover by your mutuelle, as I understand you needed in your previous place in the mountains.[/quote]I must have missed something.Where was 400% cover mentioned, please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Sorry Nomoss but I cannot quote on this machine ..my reference to 400% mutuelle cover was something I remember from way back when Idun and her OH were still living in Rhone-Alps long before they retired back to the UK.As we have nearly always been on 100% of mutuelle cover here where we live in 56 I clearly remember replying a long time ago to a post by Idun saying that they needed 400% cover to protect them from huge dépassements by the surgeons and specialists when they needed treatment in their area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idun Posted November 1, 2019 Share Posted November 1, 2019 Yes Sue exactly. I do know that some of the specialists we used charged a lot in depassements d'honoraires the last was at least 300€, which we got back from our mutualist because of the cover we had. And when we needed, we did use specialists in cliniques rather than the hospitals. Would I ever have 100%, well, I would have to look into it all very very carefully and the weird workings outs they do, before I did such a thing. And even then, I would doubt it. Why would we move back, well, french pensions, and the right to keep getting them when living in a non EU country. If they would be affected, too true we would move to another EU country and probably back to France. They are our principal income and as they were 'earned' well, they should be paid. edit, yes we did have at least 300% cover and it could have been 400% on some things. And our dentist said that our cover was far from the best..... so there you go.Are specialists less 'greedy' these days???? Even our local dentist charged an extra 15€, he was terrible and we only went once, don't mind paying is they are good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted November 5, 2019 Author Share Posted November 5, 2019 Further to my attempts to give advice, does anyone know what PUMA insurance costs as a percentage ofmincome, svp? Can the charge be written off against tax? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suein56 Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 Wooly if you mostly have pension income then PUMA cover should cost you nothing or very little as pensions are not taken into account.,You now only contribute if your investment income exceeds something like 20K€.When OH and I arrived in 2005 we paid 8% of our total income after an allowance of approx 9000€ but since then rules have changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted November 5, 2019 Author Share Posted November 5, 2019 Thank you sue, I will pass on the info to coz. Doubtless he will have other questions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NormanH Posted November 5, 2019 Share Posted November 5, 2019 I gave the details in another thread recently.The contributions which French pensioners pay (unlike British ones who don't have to pay NI) are in a series of bands similar to the ones for Taxhttps://www.retraite.com/dossier-retraite/actualites/janvier-2018/quelle-csg-pour-les-retraites-en-2018.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woolybanana Posted November 5, 2019 Author Share Posted November 5, 2019 Thank you, Norman, most kind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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