Property tax in France 2 -3 who pays Communuate de Communes

[Huxey]

We are paying three lots of taxes for our house in ~France dept 21

• Taxe d'habitation
• Taxe Foncieres
• Communuate de Communes

Does anyone know if we need to be paying all three as originally we were told that there were only two property taxes to pay in France, so we are confused regarding the Communuate de Communes as we are having difficulty finding out what this is actually for as we have a very limited knowledge of the French language and tax system. [8-)]

[Clair]

A communauté des communes is a group of several adjoining small communes with similar aims.

Together, they act as one bigger commune and can apply for grants, aids... which they would not qualify for as individual communes.

[Bernice]

Our bill for rubbish  and recycling collection - Redevance Enlevement des Ordures Ménageres - comes from our local Communauté de Communes. 

Bernice

[Huxey]

We don't think we should be paying this extra, but have contacted our local French Tax office regarding the matter, and we will let you know the results.[8-)]

[Tony F Dordogne]

It's the same as paying your subvention in the UK for your County/Regional government tho at a lower level.  IOt's likely that instead of paying increasing taxes locally, some of the functions of your commune are given to the Communuate de Communes, so you either pay them, and it's often employing people, economies of scale etc that generate their work etc. or you pay your commune for the work and they pay the C de C, whichever way, you'll have to pay the same sum overall, it's just itemised differently on your bill.  Here we pay the Commune and they pass the CdeC element on, swings and roundabouts.

I doubt whether the tax office will make any changes for you, which bit of your local services would you like to duck out of?

[NormanH]

As the OP says "we have a very limited knowledge of the French language and tax system"

It seems extraordinary that you feel suspicious of what is  a bill from a presumably official French authority on the basis of  'we were told'

The 'tax office' has diffent parts, one of which is simply collection of bills sourced from elsewhere. They will simply find it their duty to take your money or fine you for late payment.   They are not the appropriate people to take this up with.

Different communes have different ways of slicing up the charges, and you would be better trying to get help to understand what the different charges are and are for than having a 'kneejerk ' reaction to complain. Perhaps someone at the Mairie could help.

On the other hand, on a related matter:

Over the last few years a new layer of taxes has crept in.

There have always been the taxe d'habitation and taxe fonciers which go to the local authority to pay for local services, and a percentage which goes to the Région to pay for regional services. For example the Départment pays for the upkeep of collèges, but the Région for the upkeep of Lycées..

The more recent addition in many areas including my own is a contribution to the 'Agglomeration', i.e a group of villages usually associated with a town.

The idea is to spread  costs more fairly between the villages, who have low local taxes but can use the town's facilities, and the town where taxes are very high, but the people do not have exclusive rights over the facilities they pay for.

A problem of principle is that the members of the ruling body of the Agglomeration are not directly elected to that position, even though they are themselves 'élus' for example for their local commune.

Some people contest the right of unelected officials to raise taxes.