Taxes and Finances

You Have to File Taxes as a Fiscal Resident of France

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So in France you receive a tax bill for the current year based on what you were assessed the previous year.  You then pay that bill in payments so that by the time that year’s taxes are due, you will ostensibly be “ahead of the game.”  Of course, this depends on your income stability.  If you make a lot more money this year than last year, then those payments are simply a down payment on your future tax bill.  Conversely, if you are unemployed, you will still be paying into the system at the rate you did when you were employed.

Wait, Stephen, I thought you said I didn’t have to pay taxes?  You’re right, as a visitor, I don’t have to pay taxes, but I still have to file and declare taxes.

But the French government didn’t do their sums correctly, and I had to do a bit of correspondence with them to fix it.  In this blog post I told you that they recognized this error but they ended up only removing some of the amount, so I had to write another letter explaining that I didn’t owe anything.  It only took four months and two letters. 🙂

But the person who issued my corrections didn’t update my file, because I got a notice to start paying taxes based on last year’s amount…which I got dismissed.  So I had to draft another letter explaining (with photocopies of the dismissals) that not only did I not owe taxes for the 2014 taxes, but I did not owe advance payments for 2016, as I wouldn’t have any tax liability in 2015 either.  I only moved to my right-to-work status in January so next year I will actually owe something.

Remember in dealing with the French: be patient, have your documentation to the Nth degree and backups, and trust the process.  The fastest road to frustration is to imagine you are entitled to anything.

I expect to get a dismissal of my current tax bill.  I’ll let you know if something else happens.

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transferwise

Taxes and Wise

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I recently had the opportunity to meet with one of the readers of the blog over lunch.  We discussed some of his strategies for staying in France but since he had just recently arrived I asked him to check with some of his connections (he had done work at an accounting/consulting firm) about getting taxes filed.  That’s right — as an American, even if you’re here on a visitor visa and prevented by the terms of your visa from working for a French company in France, the French government requires you to file a tax return.

You read that correctly.  Now, despite the fact that you don’t owe any taxes, you still have to prepare the taxes, in French, according to French accounting laws.  If you don’t have these intersecting skill sets, let me know and I can connect you with an amazing firm that did this for me for the 2014 tax year.  If this has slipped through the cracks for you, let me know ASAP and I will try and connect you — there’s no fine and no fee to pay (as ostensibly, you don’t have taxes to pay) but you don’t want the French government catching you doing something you are supposed to do.  Better late than forgetting altogether.

2015 will be the last year that I will be considered a “non-fiscal” resident — as part of the path to citizenship (which involves my new visa) is paying taxes.  If you aren’t married to a French person, and don’t pay taxes for five consecutive years, you aren’t on the path to citizenship.  I still can’t say I “look forward” to paying taxes, but I do look forward to “being on the path.” 🙂

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Early on in this blog’s life I talked about getting a French bank account.  It’s honestly something you’re going to need to do if you plan to stay here for longer than 6 months.  However, again pursuant to your visa status, you really only want wire transfers coming in from yourself, not from employers — even if those employers are outside France — this will just cause questions at the Prefecture should they look closely at your bank accounts when you come for your appointment.

Wire transfers are “old-fashioned” in our modern age and carry old-fashioned fees.  The originating bank charges the sender (i.e. YOU sending to yourself), the receiving bank charges the receiver (again, YOU), and then there are currency exchange fees.  However, this system is in the midst of being disrupted by a company started by the guys who built Skype and bankrolled by the likes of Sir Richard Branson.  It’s called Wise.  If you click this link your first transfer is free so you can try it for yourself with no risk.  To learn more about how they do this, and circumvent the wire transfer system, watch this funny video.

Hope you enjoy the service as much as I do.  I’m an unabashed user, though I can’t imagine my US or French banks have been happy to miss out on all those fees I used to pay them 🙂

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Getting a Bank Debit Card in France

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It’s actually not that hard to get a bank account in France.  What’s hard is getting your debit card.  To open an account, stop in at your local bank of choice (I chose Société Générale because it was and is close to my place) with your passport, some money, and proof of residence (this will be a quittance de loyer or attéstation de hébergement).

To get a debit card you will need to transfer a substantial sum of money into your account.  They will ask for 1000 euros — I talked them down to 500 — which will have the excitement of your American bank charging you for a wire transfer, your French bank account charging you for your own wire transfer, and the transaction fee of converting dollars into euros.  My personal expat experience has allowed me to conduct most of my life using American bank accounts, allowing my French bank account to deal with minor day-to-day expenses which would help me avoid carrying cash around all the time (like the UGC Pass Illimité, which occasioned my getting an account in the first place, something I originally resisted.  More about the Pass in a future piece.).  Unless you have a phenomenal bank in America (like mine) you’re going to get killed in foreign transaction fees, so beware.

Only after I got a wire transfer in did I get my debit card — with a pre-assigned PIN.  That PIN, by the way, can’t be changed unless you want to pay to change it.  Brilliant or cruel?  You decide.

My account came standard with a ton of limits that a regular bank account in America wouldn’t correspondingly have.  I could only withdraw 50 euros at a time from an ATM, up to 100 euros a day.  I could only charge so much on my debit card every seven days, etc.

Even when you want to change your address you have to show proof.  In America I would call and change it, end of.  Not here.  The French love their paperwork.  Don’t you forget it!

If you are here for any period over three months, get a French bank account.  It will be a bit of trouble, but well worth it!

Did you enjoy this article? TAIP is 100% reader-supported through tipping. If you want to leave us a tip of any amount it would be highly appreciated. These tips help support our efforts to keep TAIP an ad-free environment. Just as at a cafe, the tips are split evenly among the team.