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Can I afford an international accountant?


henry052
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Hello everyone,

I'm Henry, this is my first post. I look forward to joining the community!

My partner and I are moving to Charente-Martime in October this year. To give a quick summary of my situation - I will be employed part-time in the UK (working remotely most of the time), and will also have a freelance income from illustration work. From my research so far it seems that I should seek professional advice on how to manage my income tax & social taxes.

I am a 26 year old and my income is relatively modest. I am concerned if I can afford an international accountant. Would anyone be able to advise a ballpark figure for how much I should expect to pay for advice?

I'd also be grateful for any recommendations of particular international / expat-specialist accountants (my French is intermediate level, so I would need someone English speaking at this stage). Ideally one who welcomes less wealthy clients (if such companies exist)?

Many thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Henry
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We had a local accountant for 18years NOT international as it was a frenchbusiness and it cost approx. €4000/year plus extras.This included all the TVA reclaimations,dossier prepared and presented to the fisc and upto 2005 when our last employee left, monthly charges for wages paperwork. For you, you do not need such an accountant but you do need to visit the local Chambre de Métiers or Commerce who will advise you of the best way to deal with the tax as you have to register if you are earning and working and France and pay into the system accordingly.
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As far as the french are concerned you are employed where you park your backside, so you will be working in France. You need to sort that out with an accountant and see how you can run your business / work from France.

You do need advice that is for sure, just call some accountants and get some basic advice to start with, you may get some free initially.

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However and from personal experience, do not sign up with a Gestion d'Agreer Comptabilité as you have to pay a yearly subscription of around €500 on top of your accountancy fees which they insist is taken by direct debit from your account. We, after many years of being in a gestion cabinet turned to a freelance accountant who turned out to be half the cost and much more hands on than the bloke we only saw once per year yet paid dearly.Be careful of residency and working here because as Idun says, its where you parks your bum at the end of the day in the eyes of the fisc.
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Henry

Welcome to the forum.

Just to expand on Idun's reply and explain some of the consequences.

There are 2 basic rules in cases such as this:

You are tax resident in the country where you do your work.

You will need to be employed by a company in the country where you are tax resident. Alternatively you will need to be self employed in the country where you are tax resident and can then offer your services around the world.

Where your customers are has no relevance to your tax residence.

What this means is that your UK employer cannot employ you to do work in France. [There are exceptions, but they are rare and from what you have described would not apply.] If your UK employer has a French branch, you could ask if you could be employed by them. You could ask your UK employer to set up a branch to employ you, but the costs and efforts will be very large.

However, since you say you will also be taking on freelance work as well, you could add your current employer to your freelance portfolio.

Another alternative might be to do the work for your UK employer through a French portage company, but they will take a substantial fee for this privilege. [Essentially you become employed on a freelance basis by the portage company and they charge your current employer for your services.]

So as Idun has said you certainly need professional advice.

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Just to show that things are very different, look at this report on main french news from tonight, about 6mins 55 in, (see link below). There is a big problem at the moment with the Uber taxis registered in Holland and  french taxi drivers. In the news below they show the difference in prices paid by clients and actually what the proper taxi drivers pay in deductions, which has nothing to do with their income tax, just what they have to pay the state on their earnings, and that is 46%.

http://www.francetvinfo.fr/replay-jt/france-2/20-heures/jt-de-20h-du-jeudi-25-juin-2015_957983.html

Also employers pay about 47% to the state based on their employees income too. So say you pay someone 2000€ a month (always monthly in France) then you'll have paid out 2940€'ish. May be some reductions for new employees and new companies, but that is the general rule. Also it is very hard to sack someone in France if they have a CDI.

Lots of check up on, and you need professional advice, not from a message board as you will be responsible for getting this 'right'.

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I was in a similar situation when I came over, although I'm a bit older! I went for the self employed route and registered as an Auto Entrepreneur and invoiced my former employer. I never bothered with professional advice. All the people I know who have used accountants have just ended up in complicated regimes that cost them a lot of money.

Of course if when you say you are working remotely you are working somewhere other than France, or working in a UK based office then you would still be working in the UK and would continue to pay tax and NI on that salary in the UK.
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In theory your employer can employ you in France, because URSSAF have a service to deal specifically with this:

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

but although they make it sound simple, it isn't, and any UK employer will be in a state of shock when they see what cotisations they would have to pay. So unless your company is very generous, has endless patience and values your services like gold dust - they won't do it.

Realistically, self-employment is probably your best bet if your employer will accept it, technically of course it would be 'concealed employment' but since your 'client' is over the border nobody is ever going to pick up on that.
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Hi.

We use the services of this lady in the Mayenne area; http://www.sosanglo.com

She may be too far away from you, but I wondered if there might be a similar person in the area that you are moving to.

She is certainly very good and very inexpensive too.

Might be worth looking around rather than just opting for an accountant.

Good luck with the move.
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Hi Henry.

I did get your e-mail thanks but it has somehow disappeared. Anyway, it just happens that we had a meeting with Valerie today and I mentioned that it was me that gave you her info'. So, I hope that she can help you as much as she has done us.

Best wishes. Les.
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