Tax Residence Notification Form

[Hindhaugh]

Have just received forms from Credit Agricole re Tax Residence this follows the EU directive of the 3rd June 2003 that comes into force the 2005 tax year. I presume everyone with an account in France must have received these forms? The accompanying letter states that this tax declaration may in the future cause me administrative or tax inconvenience.... now thats nice. Any of you wizards out there with any advice, hints, tips and of course we need to ensure that our already high tax is not pushed up....help!

[LesLauriers]

If you are declaring all of your income to the correct tax authority you have no need to worry.

If you live in UK then it's a UK tax return.

If you live in France it's a French return.

At worst it will be both, so what's the problem?

[BJSLIV]

 i presume everyone with an account in France

No only people with an account in France but who live elsewhere.

The idea is to trap people who avoid paying tax in either France or the UK by having their interest paid tax free in France, but then not declaring it in the UK.

If you are living in the UK you contact your tax office, get the form validated, and send it back. The French bank then notify the UK of how much interest you have earned and you will be taxed at your UK marginal rate . If you don't complete the form then the bank will automatically deduct French tax and social charges.

[Will]

No only people with an account in France but who live elsewhere

No, not at all the case. French residents receive these forms too.

I don't see where interest comes into it, as French current accounts pay no interest.

Unless anybody is trying to pull a fast one with taxation by not being tax resident anywhere (quite easy in Britain but fairly difficult if you have any French finances) there is no problem.

[BJSLIV]

I Stand corrected

Having reexamined the directive the mechanism is quite interesting (in the sad way that only accountants find things interesting 0

The aim is to trap tax evasion. So all EU savings accounts have to have attached to them a reference indicating in the tax id and the  country in which the holder is liable to taxation. This is derived from the persons passport or id card, and if this does not provide a tax reference, then the certificate is required.

This will of course be a lot easier in France where it has been the norm to require passport / id for account opening for many years, whereas in the UK no checks were made until relatively recently, and even then majored on on proof of address rather than personal id.

As you say most French banks do not pay interest on current accounts, but I assume for bureaucratic completeness they are adding the reference to the top level computer dossier, so that they would be covered if the person added a compte sur livret or similar at a later date.

So anyone with a French savings account but a UK passport may expect to receive the request, but anyone with a current account and a UK passport may also be roped in.

 

[JeanS]

We've received the same forms - after I'd spent about an hour reading the French side, I realised that there was an English translation on the reverse!!.

I called my Tax office in the UK - they've sent me a letter confirming that I am a UK resident and that I pay tax in the UK.  They suggest that I send that together with a copy of my last P60 to the bank in France.  So I'm going to give it a try.

There isn't anywhere on the form for the UK Tax office to sign.

[Fritz]

Is this something to do with the EU savings directorate (or somesuch)? My understanding is that this relates to EU based offshore savings accounts as well as overseas accounts held by non-residents. Basically you have the choice of paying 15% tax at source without the need to tell your tax collector (wherever he or she may be) or the account or you can come clean. It might seem the best solution just to cough up the 15% but the problem is that this rate increases rapidly over a period of years.

But what do I know.