capital gains tax

[booboo]

Evening all;

I was wondering if anyone can help an english friend of mine - he's just about to complete the sale of his parisian flat, that he rents out; and because of the 'profit' he'll make on it; the notaire has said that he's got to obtain a bank caution to guarantee the fact that he'll pay the cgt once it's been calculated by mr tax man ( i persume this because he's not french and not living in france?)

he's no idea what to do, as he's short for time, the buyer is in a hurry to buy now as it's been dragging on; hasn't got a clue what to ask the bank in english never mind french.

What i don't get is that why doesn't the notaire just withhold what he estimates the CGT to be, from the sale proceeds (there's no loan to repay) ? that would be too logical wouldn't it!

thanks in advance to anyone who's had to go thru' this shedding any light on what to do!

[shimble]

get some serious advise before you sign you may be getting pushed into something are you sure you have to pay cgt there are some other threads here go to a seperate notaire take advice juridique get assurance juridique at your french bank or at an avocat he really needs to spend some time in france doing some serious reseach before he gets ripped off make sure you know exactly how much cgt will be liable before selling dont sign anything untill you are sure of what you are doing get everything verified by independant parties outside the selling of the property this is common sense the buyer can wait till you are sure, this is paris everyone is on speed, everyone is out to make a buck your friend is an easy target to rip off his flat will sell easily in paris take your time to make sure you know what you are doing if the flat is paid for then it is costing very little to sit there empty in six months if it takes that long the value of the flat will have increased anyway.

i may be ignorant but im not stupid....

[shimble]

p.s www.impot.gouv.fr click documentation then impot practique there is some stuff in english,theres a lawyer on this forum that dinks good french wine and hasnt got a 4x4 offer to pay him for his time it wil be worth it.

[BJSLIV]

Seems most unusual. This kind of arrangement used to be the norm when the gains tax was paid in arrears But since the law cahnged the Notaire just deducts the tax from the proceeds before paying the vendor. The only justification I could see would be if the owner had remortgaged to such an extent that the sale price less the outstanding mortgage was less than the tax due.

Has your friend asked why a guarantee is require?

 

[TarnGranny]

As this is a Maison Secondaire for someone who resides outside France the Notaire should I believe be pointing your friend in the direction of I think 3 Government approved companies in France who work out the CGT (Not the Notaire in this case) and who guarantee that the Government will get CGT on the sale and if a mistake is made will guarantee that the government will get the correct CGT eventually. The charges of these companies are high and your friend can ask for a private individual to do the calculations etc for him, but the appointee must be government approvable (lives in France, has assets to cover any mistakes etc). I wonder if the Bank in your friend's case would be a suitable appointee and would be able or willing to do this for him (an approved person/company still has to work out the Tax and guarantee that any errors will be re-imbursed to the Government in the future).

This link should be of help (read where it says "Payment of the withholding : the accredited representative key player:"):

http://www.notaires.fr/notaires/notaires.nsf/V_TA_PUB/SMSI-5ZLK9Q?opendocument

[booboo]

Thanks for your replies.

That's what I thought too about the notaire deducting directly.... mmm strange

ok, will update when he gets some news!

 

oops, i was in the middle of posting this before tarngranny's answer....