2023 tax return

Banking & Financial Tax & Social charges
262

I have found the tax offices here are generally very good., although need to make sure you are asking the right person for the right thing. And when a problems go visit rather than write a letter - ours still has a walk-in service.

It is their busiest time of year, plus they also have this wretched property declaration which seems to have generated thousands of messages. And May has lots of public holidays - and consequently lots of people taking extra leave. So responses will be very slow.

One can of course, always book and appointment with France Services.

263

Hi everyone, I sold my share in a UK Limited Company last year and was wondering where to declare it? I simply added it to section 5 of 2074 but I’m not sure that’s correct at all.

Does anyone have any experience with that?

I’m looking forward to setting up in France and hopefully simplifying the next return! :slight_smile:
Thanks

264

Omg I’m exhausted I started at 11 and pressed submit at 7.20 pm. Found the thing about travel I’d never seen so that was good, but lost lots last year :see_no_evil: :rage: :see_no_evil: :rofl:

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265

We went to the local office today armed with printouts of every page of the 2042 and the 2047 clearly filled in, a list of UK banks opened and closed and a list of all the boxes with amounts that I tried to post online. The fellow printed off a declaration form which was very pale and indistinguishable and proceeded to write in the amounts that I had already inserted on my clear copies. He then got us to sign and that was that. Now we just wait to see how much they will levy in income tax and social tax. I hope there is no dispute and that next year the glitch is no longer there. Another job ticked off the list.

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266

Ah,the glitch / gremlin didn’t sort itself out. Presume you won’t get a late paper penalty, curious though, to confirm on the foreign bank accounts side, the tax person didn’t fill in X separate 3916 whatever forms
?

Did they take your paper list, or just ignore them or what?

cheers!

267

No he did not ignore my lists, because I made sure he had a copy of the banks involved and also that the 20P box was ticked and also the list of boxes and amounts that had to be entered, so practically, he had it all. It’s just whether it all stays together and is levied correctly. All of this is entered on the online version, I just could not go to the last page, sign and date and submit, so they have the information twice. I expect they will levy the tax twice as well, or at least it may seem like that.

Thanks for your continued interest.

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268

Does anyone know if I should tick 8UU (Comptes ouverts, dĂ©tenus, utilisĂ©s ou clos Ă  l’étranger) or 8TT (Contrats de capitalisation / assurance vie souscrits Ă  l’étranger) on the main tax form for a Stocks and Shares ISA?

If it’s considered a contrat de capitalisation, the corresponding details on 3916 are somewhat difficult to understand and seem to be more geared towards life-insurance contracts.

It’s all rather confusing.

Any help much appreciated!

269

From what I gathered, a contrat de capitalisation is a private pension plan. I’d go for 8UU.

270

Hmm
I ended up putting both the ISA and my ex-employer’s company pension scheme (I’m not even retired yet!) in 8TT in the end. Fingers crossed. It feels a bit like playing ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ sometimes.

271

Having tried with no luck to arrange a meeting with or even to get through to my SIP, failed to find an accountant locally whom I could pay to help, I tried France Services just to be told, ‘
mais Monsieur, ils sont tous en grùve en ce moment, essayez plus tard dans la semaine!’

You really couldn’t make it up.

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272

You need to get a move on. Deadline is midnight tonight!

273

get something done by midnight

Folk can always do corrections later
 just important that one is seen to be making “some sort of effort” by the deadline
 :slight_smile:

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274

Indeed - it’s done now, but it’s left me feeling anxious rather than relieved!

275

Thanks again Stella - think I’ll take a deep breath and join the queue at the SIP on one of the 3 mornings it’s open over the coming week.

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276

Just take everything with you
 keep calm
 and all will be well :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

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277

I have looked to see if I have already posted this question and can’t find it. My question concerns PIP payments (UK Benefit: Personal Independent Payment) and whether this benefit is to be declared and if so, in which box? Anyone?

278

Done the tax returns now! Finished at 6 pm ish, I thought I’d be the last lagard - I see there’s still a few though.

Phew - what a process, a couple of days, I do sympathise with everyone


A few obs / feedback -

Thanks @letsmile for the 2044 confirmations, it all worked out as for you, and as you did, this time I started with the main return and just let the annexes come up. I also added the UK property address, thought it rude not to, though I provided the letting agent as the tenant - seemed more relevant.

There is a timeout working - so get everything together and go for it, no pausing - otherwise one has to click through loads of ‘suivant’ buttons to get back to where one was, not so bad except


The foreign accounts declaration - aaarghhhh - I had about 50 for me and 50 for Madame to do - I’m seriously considering never opening another UK account ever again - then just did open another first direct 7% regular saver


Clicking through all those to get back to where one was - it’s 4 clicks per account!

Thanks to the person who said tick 8UU first, I saw my 2021 declared UK accounts - the system seemed to remove the ones with a ‘closed’ date in 2021. Presumably all the others must be carried forward to 2022 - but no option to add a closed date in 2022 to them, so god knows what will happen in 2023 !

The system seems to work out the UK interest correctly without any being declared in the 2047 - I forgot to add the amount in line 260, but it still used the 7,5% social contribution rate - probably because 8SH is ticked (S1).

And therefore my final caveat - get it right first time! I went to amend the 2047 to add line 260 - and yes, had to click through every appendix - the dreaded foreign accounts - 200 clicks - and the main form again (data was held, so not restarting, but I really, really know the meaning of ‘suivant’ now


Thanks to all for this year, I’m sure next year’s process will be smoother, as I thought last year too. Ever the optimist


The good news of course is the end result, the France tax is several K less than what I / we would have paid if UK tax assessed. France is indeed a good place to fiscally retire to! (So far).

And, better than paying to Sunak so he can give a bung to Ratcliffe’s Man U? :slight_smile:

And edited to just say I’m just lucky to have the income to pay tax on, thinking of @david_spardo .

The politics (and morality) here would be - the UK taxes people with ‘lesser’ incomes, France doesn’t? So perhaps France more equitable in income distribution?

PS here I did suggest if in 11% tax band territory to consider having interest taxed to the ‘bareme’ scale - when I did the calc on my spreadsheet I realised the reduction from 12.8% flat rate to 11% is outweighed by the loss of the ‘decote’. So updating on that comment.

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279

Gosh
 I’m wondering why so many accounts ???.. it’s all I can do to spread our dosh over 2 accounts
 and only one of those is outside France :rofl: :rofl: no need to reply
 :rofl: :rofl:

280

Don’t mind explaining, unless you meant ‘go away’ of course :slight_smile:

The last few years, doing my frontaliere work, have but up a nice (but maybe not enough for ‘Nice’) pot for buying the France property.

Obviously this pot of a few 100K is plummeting in value from inflation so just keen to minimise the losses, i.e. maximise the interest. Hence jumping around lots of different accounts and regular savers - some UK reg savers are up to 9% now, but on small amounts of money - the unlimited accounts, a few fractions of a percent still yield hundreds more.

Of course, all of this is France taxable but the UK rates still compare well with the France Livret A - I’ve now got 4% UK so 3.2 after tax, and just applied for one tracking Bank of England rate, so 4.5 I think - but has a limit of 50K deposit.

And one needs to spread the money around, if one wants the 85K FSCS protection - rather than have all eggs in one basket.

The mantra is ‘ditch and switch’ to get the best rates - and also UK banks pay you to switch - I’ve had more than 1K free cash just from the switching offers over the years.

The pain arrives each France tax year of course for declaring. When we arrived though, we just submitted a list of accounts - pdf emailed to the tax inspector, then a printout dropped off at the tax office. There were more than a 100 each on that list


I appreciate I’m coming across here as a rich bugger, but really just a first time buyer - a 50% drop in France property prices would do nicely! (Just joking :slight_smile: )

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281

I have regularly opened new accounts since I was in my 20’s to take advantage of interest rates. And the number of accounts was way more than the amount in them, as we never closed them “just in case”. It’s what many people did. So when we arrived here we had maybe 60 between us., many with only a few pounds in them.

We are now down to about a dozen between the his, hers and joint accounts. So will probably leave it there.