Well, that was fun. Not.

[YCCMB]

So, due to a number of unfortunate family complications, we've had our eyes off the ball for several weeks. During which time, the tax fonc. bill arrived and Mr Betty filed it under "must get round to that".

Last night, he retrieved it, with the water bill, and said to me that they were both a bit overdue and could I write the cheques.

When I looked at the tear-off bit for the tax fonc. I was puzzled to see it was a direct debit authorisation, so I had to read on, to find that now, if you have a bill over €1000, you HAVE to pay online or by DD. Oh great...

I appreciate there are aficionados of DD on here, of which I'm not one. Not least, these days, because we choose to keep as little as possible in our French account, and as we don't know when they're going to debit us anyway, that's a recipe for a Nasty Surprise. So I logged onto the website to pay online.

As we aren't fiscally resident in France, we can't create an espace personnel because you need a tax reference or two. Which means you need to be a taxpayer...

The website keeps saying you can just pay directly...but NOT, of course, via credit card (no, that would be too bloody easy). Oh no, you have to pay from your bank account.

It took me a good ten minutes to find the button I had to press to allow me to pay without creating an espace personnel.

Still baffled as to why, in the land of the ever present chequebook, the fisc. have decided that cheques are no longer good enough for them. And why you can write them a cheque for anything up to €1000, but not more. I mean, worst case, you could just write two cheques, if there's some sort of weird limit.

Anyway. Not impressed.

[Noisette]

I suppose that, like mine, it's immaterial, but next year the limit for paying by cheque drops to €300. Isn't it linked to all the rigmarole about preventing money laundering? Can't pay by cash or cheque over an ever-decreasing limit? Whatever....just don't try buying any building materials from Castorama until your blood pressure is safely low again. They make the foncs look distinctly amateur ?

[Patf]

We got our final (I hope) tax fonc. bill a couple of weeks ago. The problem for us was we no longer have a french bank account.

I tried to email the tax office, no luck, so in the end sent a letter asking for bank details. They emailed me back and I paid from my Lloyds account.

There was a fee of £9.

I've still got the bank details, it's a main branch in Paris, so probably the same for everyone.

[Théière]

Betty, could it be as a result of some French person issuing the mandate that all transfers over €1000 have to be that way as cash amounts above that level are not allowed any more.

I thought cheques were ok as they give an audit trail, but as ever one accountants version of what was stated could be different to another.

[YCCMB]

I can totally understand cash, teapot....but cheques! And there's a job for someone at gouv.fr making live links to information on their website, so that idiots like me don't waste endless hours reading the bit that says "or you can pay online" and yelling "Yes, but HOW?" at the screen.

And why can't anyone ever pay for anything by credit card? And why are there so many people in France who don't want to? (Don't bother explaining the realities of that one, I already know: it's a semi-rhetorical question).

What I hate with a passion is this handing over of control. As if the actual owner of the bank account is incapable of managing their own financial affairs. It riles me most because in France, the idea is that if you want to contest anything, you must first pay and then argue. But by then, they have your money so have lost all interest in solving your problem. At least in the UK it's mostly OK to contest first and pay when it's sorted. That way, at least, the organisation you owe has some incentive to sort things out.

[alittlebitfrench]

Who pays by cheques anymore ?

Outside your little rural getaways France is a scary place.

If I ran a business, I would not accept cheques or cash.

[YCCMB]

Duh...the French! A LOT more so than in the UK, that's for sure! Maybe it's gradually changing, but I'm baffled as to what exactly it's changing to, because I know lots of French people who treat debit and credit cards as if they were radioactive.

Personally, I changed banks here in the UK about two years back, and have never had cause to open the cheque book they kindly sent me. In fact, I still had a full one from my old account, too.

I quite like the fact that I can pay from my phone, or with my debit card, for more or less anything here.

Last time I had a French mobile (with Free, for €2 a month) they threatened me with a huissier when the UK credit card I'd been using to pay them finally expired, and wouldn't let me link my account to the new card. Oh no, I had to pay by DD. I was promised they'd contact me and at that point I could add my new card details, but instead they just sent a demand and the whole huissier nonsense, so I had to send them the €4 I owed and by that time they'd already blocked my account and given my number away. The whole rigmarole probably cost them 20 times that €4, when all they had to do was accept my new credit card details.... Sigh.

[Patf]

re bank cards - many of the older folk in our part of rural France thought they were very advanced if they had a bank account, never mind anything else. As for internet banking - no way.

Most times I was in CA one of the staff was showing an elderly person how to get cash from the machine. They had a sort of green withdrawal card. That's why it will take ages to get rid of cheque books in France.

Mind I'm not much better when it comes to smartphones etc, still refuse to have one.

[nomoss]

[quote user="You can call me Betty or Queenie if you prefer"] ............ we don't know when they're going to debit us anyway, that's a recipe for a Nasty Surprise. ......... .[/quote]

I believe you can see your bills for the Taxes d'Habitation and Foncières on line, when they are available, mid to end of July and August respectively, by entering your Nº Fiscal, whether or not you have an espace personnel.

You can then arrange, on line, for the bills to be paid by direct debit (this is not a repeatable or standing order) by entering details of your French bank account, and printing an authorisation to send to your bank.

The money will then be taken from your bank exactly ten days after the normal latest day for payment, taking into account weekends and holidays.

[andyh4]

It is not just France Betty.

When I first arrived in the 90s, you could use your debit card (no credit cards then and very few now) in a hotel, to buy a railway or plane ticket, and that was about it.

I remember the jubilation when supermarkets started to accept cards. Until then it was cash only and I developed a syndrome whereby If I had less than about 300DM (150€ equivalent), I would get very twitchy and be seeking out an ATM.

[Judith]

Well this rings bells,  Just trying to get our "new" dd organised, for the impots, with a hubby who doesn't want to dd ... been happy sending a tip all these years. Spent rather more time too on the impots site today than I could have wished, and still not done!

Cheques, well use them all the time in France to pay subs to organisatons etc, no way are they past there sell-by date here.

[Théière]

[quote user="Judith"]

Cheques, well use them all the time in France to pay subs to organisatons etc, no way are they past there sell-by date here.

[/quote]

They are at least a written contract! [:D]

[BritinBretagne]

I really don’t know why anyone is afraid of direct debit. Nobody takes any money from my bank without me being informed beforehand and the date when the withdrawal will be made is always crystal clear.

In banking terms cheques are treated as cash.

[YCCMB]

I'm not afraid of direct debits as such, BinB...but I've had and know others who have had the most horrendous problems cancelling them (in France.. It takes seconds in the UK, where I have several)

As I've said, one significant problem (for me) is that if I get a big bill, the first step is to actually have to transfer enough money into our French account to pay it, as we keep as little as possible in there. It only takes something like us going away on holiday for a bill to arrive and payment to be taken while we're blissfully unaware of what's arrived in the post. Having a UK current account that actually pays me to use it is a far more attractive proposition than changing the money into euros at a rubbish exchange rate and moving it into a bank that charges me for the privilege of having an account/debit card, whatever.

Nomoss: I'm sure what you say is right. For me, life's too short to keep checking in online over the summer to see if/whether the figures are available, and fannying about authorising payment, not least because during that whole period I'm on holiday with only mobile data on my phone...then having to create another reminder for October to ensure enough funds have been transferred to pay when the payment is due to be taken. I'm sure there are those who agree with you that it's all totally straightforward. I'm very much used to a system where a bill arrives and I can pay it online using my credit card from a user-friendly website in a matter of seconds. I hope I can be forgiven for finding all the faffing about involved in paying French bills to be at best, bizarre.

[Loiseau]

I'm afraid that's just France for you, Betty. You won’t get them to change anytime soon.

I went for direct debits on bills for our holiday home, because I was always fearful a French bill would arrive in the U.K. as soon as we were ensconced for the summer hols. With the major ones (taxes fonc & d'hab and electricity) split into monthly payments, and phone/internet regular too, it was not too difficult to estimate how much to keep in the French account. ( I always erred on the generous side though, having once been caught out being overdrawn by about 15 francs on the rubbish bill and being threatened with interdiction bancaire).

The only snag cropped up after having sold the house last year, when the taxes fonc and d'hab went on being taken for a couple more months while they got their head round the fact that I no longer owned the place. But they coughed up eventually, and paid it back into my French account.

[YCCMB]

Loiseau, I don't expect things to change..although clearly, the reason for this post is that they just have! I guess my issue is that when there IS change, I'm slightly puzzled when I can't see how it's for the better!

[Lehaut]

We were touring Corsica on the motor bike this September. Went to Calvi and climbed up to the top of the Citadelle in plus 35°C. Got up there and found an artisanal ice cream shop. Each had two delicious scoops. Proffered CA card to pay "sans contact" to be told, no we don't take cards, cash only. Panic set in as we rarely carry cash or cheques now. Were told the nearest cash point was back down the hill in the town! We looked around for the sign in the ice cream shop that informed punters and found a 5cm by 5cm sticker in the window with a cross through it. Luckily managed to find enough coins lost in the pocket lint.

[Judith]

Likewise, per se, I am not agin DD, and if it were me, they'd be in place monthly so I knew where I was.  But like, you Betty, we keep small amounts in the account where we want the payements to come from, so need time to arrange the money to go into to .. we will do it, because we are given no alternative from next year, and indeed for the taxe d'hab now due, but reading on the site, you can only do this at a certain time of the month, and only change the account details once (!!!!), likewise, though are accounts are linked and we can see each others account details and indeed move money between them online, the Impots will only let me deal with the two accounts in my name .... and not the one they want to put it against, hubby's, as that is where it has been since time immemorial when we first bought and there was then only the one account, as it was before I arrived full time.   Grrrrrr!!

[NormanH]

I pay as many things by virements (out of a savings account into which I pay monthly)  as possible rather than by prélèvements automatiques because then I am in control and the organisation has to ask me for money, rather then being in a situation where I am trying to claim some back

This is since,  despite the rather smug comment"I really don’t know why anyone is afraid of direct debit. Nobody takes

any money from my bank without me being informed beforehand and the date

when the withdrawal will be made is always crystal clear" I had 3000€ taken with no warning by Lyonnaise d'Eau.

I know of plenty of other cases that make a nonsense of that remark.

I do pay my local taxes monthly by prélèvement, but for other bodies that make it seem as if it is obligatory I have a strategy of setting one up  to get  whatever it is switched on then I fais opposition at the bank and when the come asking for money I pay in the way I want not the way they demand

If you pay anything (an Internet company for example) by prélèvement

always fais opposition immediately when you cancel the contract and preferably a couple of days before

That stops them continuing to take payments and if you do owe anything it us up to them to chase you....

[YCCMB]

Pretty much my sentiments exactly, Norman. A good friend, in dispute with their caisse, and it was the caisse that was entirely in the wrong, had their bank account literally emptied without being able to stop it, and when I say emptied, I mean they were left just before Christmas with 3 kids, no money for food and an assistante sociale who said she couldn't help them till the New Year. And the bank was entirely complicit, adding to their problems by enforcing an interdiction bancaire because they'd written a cheque without knowing that RSI had emptied their account.

[richard51]

Out of interest, Norman, did you get your 3000 back?

[Judith]

Betty, NormanH, yes, I prefer to do it like that, but it seems the Impots won't let us ... nor, if you go paperless (we don't), can it seem they can send you a reminder that they are going to take out the money ... not yet in the 21st C methinks.

[richard51]

Methinks they are in the 21st century and trying to reduce unnecessary costs caused by unnecessary/silly issues.

[BritinBretagne]

Smug? That really is the pot calling.