Small earner?

[loella]

My husband and I have been over here in France for 2 years. We live on a very limited income (it's registered as 4,600€ yearly with the Impots) as he has a long term disibility pension and as you most people from the UK may know, its just about scraping by!!! We thought moving over here wouuld be cheaper...NOT SO!!! we really love it here and want to stay but have found the bills particuarily for heating much higher than expected. We have hit on an idea of earning a little extra each year by taking in paying guests perhaps for about 4 to 5 weeks during the summer ( we have interested parties already). However, we would not want to be in trouble with the 'powers that be' and want to play by the rules. We were told last year by the Impots that because our income was so low, we could earn a bit before we would ever have to pay tax (also apparantly because he's long term disabled, he has a higher 'ceiling'?) I can't go out to work and leave him so the obvious plan would be to do something at home...any advice as to how we go about this officially without it turning our lives upside down and causing more stress bearocratically than is worth it, much appreciated.

Annie

[Coco]

Questions about rgistering for B&B constantly come up on this forum and the rules seem to be different from departement to departement.  But I would stick my neck out and say that general rules are that as long as you have less than 5 letting rooms and that the income from the B&B is less than 50% of your overall income and therefore is not your main source of income you do not have to be registered as such, as long as you declare the income on your tax form.  I would think that if you are only planning to let your rooms for 4 or 5 weeks in the summer there will be no danger of you reaching any kind of tax thresshold.

Don't bother to contact your local chambre de commerce, one thing that does seem to be general throughout France is that they will all tell you that you MUST register even ONE room, even if you're only letting it out for a couple of weeks a year, but this is not so.