CGT on sale of property

[shanorm]

Have just read on another website that if you are in receipt of an 'old age' pension you do not pay CGT on the sale of your property in France whether it is your main residence or not. Anyone know if this is correct?

[LesLauriers]

For what it's worth, I have never seen anything which supports this view.

 

[David584]

From information sourced from another site:

The rules regarding CGT changed in January 2004 and this apparently was the position in March 2004.

You are exempt from French CGT if you are in receipt of an old age pension or are an invalid. This applies even if you are a non-resident. This is subject to some fairly detailed conditions set out in the tax code. There are a number of other more detailed exemptions. The main residence exemption which is similar to the UK one and which can only apply if you are French resident appears below.

And with a bit of further research have conifrmed it word for word here:

http://www.sykesanderson.com/articles/french_cgt_rules_2004.asp

 

 

[Will]

This site also gives detailed information about French capital gains tax (I suspect most of it is the same as the Sykes Anderson website). http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-legal/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=851.

I personally wouldn't get too worked up about the apparent old age/invalidity exemption. As the site says, it is subject to detailed conditions. I have known British pensioners who have sold in France and still had to pay considerable capital gains tax under the present system - and they had to appoint a tax representative as well. I would imagine that the 'conditions' are somewhat similar to those giving reductions for the elderly and infirm in local taxe foncière and taxe d'habitation - i.e. they rule out nearly everybody.