Tax Situation

[Deauville]

It's probably a dumb question but I'll ask it anyway. I've got a small private pension payable in the UK that I share (magnanimously) with my wife and a also little off-shore savings account, I'm up to date with my UK tax and we've been living here permanently since May '06 and are above the CMU base threshold. As yet I've done nothing about informing HM Tax Office that I'm not going back, neither have I told the French Tax office that I'm here (and now the question becomes 2!) should I inform UK tax via Sunday Driver's quoted FD5 form and should I also fill in an on-line French tax declaration and try to curry some favour?

(and why doesn't this have a spell checker? I hate correcting my own mistakes!)

[Teamedup]

You don't need to inform the french tax people yet. You will have to get hold of a french tax form from either the Hotel des Impots or even your local Mairie in March/April even May time 2007. Fill it in and send it in with your world wide income from the date you became a french resident. We pay a year in arrears here, so we will all be filling our forms in next springtime for 2006 revenue.

Your second tax form in France should arrive in the post, if it doesn't it will be up to you to get hold of one. We are 'fined', I think 10% for not getting them in on time.

 

I would suggest that you contact the tax inspectors in the UK as soon as possible. There is a Centre for Non Residents in Nottingham and they are helpful if you call them.

[Sunday Driver]

Deauville

You should phone your UK tax office and tell them that you've premanently left the UK and now living in France.  They'll send you a form P85 which you sign to certify that you are no longer resident in the UK for tax purposes.  They will then transfer your tax file to the Centre for Non Residents. 

The CNR will then send you the FD5 tax reclaim form which you complete and hand in to your French tax office next spring when you submit your first tax declaration.  The French tax authorities will stamp the form and return it to the CNR.  The CNR will then amend your UK tax code so that your future pension is paid tax free.  They will also arrange a refund of all the UK tax you've paid since the date of your arrival in France.  If you follow the correct process, your UK tax refund will arrive in your bank account before you receive your first (and probably tiny) French tax bill.

 

[cooperlola]

SD, just one thing.  My tax office wouldn't sign the FD5 until I was actually in the system - ie a couple of months after I submitted the declaration - when my tax had been actually worked out.  This may vary from office to office -dunno?

[Deauville]

Thanks to both of you. I read SD's response to someone else's question and I've just sent off P85s that I downloaded and with luck I should be in receipt of the FD5s before I get my first French Tax form. Then I need to decide whether to submit the FD5 ahead of the French form and avoid copperola's point or go with SD and chuck the lot at the Centre des Impot

[cooperlola]

Chuck it all at them and they'll soon tell you what to do.  Mine was very helpful indeed.

[Ron Avery]

Copperlola's experience is not the norml, so I'd ignore that, its usual to submit the FD5 (both copies) at the same time as you submit your French tax return, you cannot do it on line first time round so go to your tax office next May and do the both at the same time, they will check that the amount that you are claiming back tax paid on in the UK is the same amount that you are declaring as income in France, if it is there is no problem and it gets sent to Paris and then to Nottingham, after that your tax office will becomes Bootle.

You appear for some reason to have ignored my post about your E 106.  As SD will confirm,  if you only moved here in May 2006 your E 106 should not be expiring until January 2008, not 2007, get onto Newcastle and query it. They did the same to us only gave us 5 months and then corrected it.

[cooperlola]

Ron, I just take it you don't mean the "mine is very helpful" bit!  All that happened in my case was that I took my first tax return in with the FD5 and as I wasn't on the system (because it was my first return in my own right as I had just begun to receive an income - my pension) the extremely kind lady asked me to come back in a couple of months when I was on the computer.  I think I did advise the OP to do it the way you suggest but perhaps be prepared for the same thing to happen to them.  If it happened at the Mamers office it may happen eslewhere, no?[:)]

[Sunday Driver]

The bi-lingual instructions on the FD5 say that you should hand in the form with your first tax declaration.  They also ask the French tax authorities to enter your new French tax code (clearly not available until your tax declaration has been processed) then stamp it and return it to the CNR.

My own tax office told me to bring my form back in the summer, by which time I'd be on the system.  I did this, and my form was processed immediately and I got my UK tax refund in time.  At least the FD5 was in my own hands during the intervening period, so there was no chance of it falling down the back of some French filing cabinet ......

Either way, it's no big deal.  I'd just follow the advice of your local tax office.

 

 

[Deauville]

Sorry, I wasn't ignoring the question, just thinking up a convincing answer to cover my mistake! We actually left the UK in October last year to do a bit of travelling and, as we were using a French c/o address we decided to inform Newcastle right from the start. I guess with hindsight we could have kept a UK c/o address and not informed Newcastle till later but hey! life's a bugger sometimes