NOTE - This SF Topic is regarding the development of the “Guerilla AE / ME Social Charges & Tax Estimator” (This link opens up a Google Sheet)
This estimator tool is currently in development (as of March 18th 2017) and is Google Sheet that if all goes well, the community will be able to use estimate their financial obligations to l’etat as under AE / ME activities.
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Hello all. As mentioned on the Maximum income and obligations for Micro Entreprenuer topic, I am firing up this new topic here to for the development of a Guerilla AE / ME Social Charges & Tax Estimator
Give me a few days to get the next version of this done (I have some ideas I want to implement) and then I’ll open it up to your critique ok?
I’ll be in touch. Cheers!
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Hey guys.
I am a little ahead of schedule and am ready for feedback on this new version of the AE / ME Estimator. @Anna thanks for your feedback on the other thread … if you could you check out the new version of the AE / ME Estimator along with the new video that would be great.
Cheers all.
Hi again - the prélèvement social + fiscal (line 3) isn’t a separate item, it’s lines 1 (prélèvement social) and line 2 (prélèvement fiscal) totalled together, so it hasn’t got to be added in again or you’ve accounted for them both twice!
Two more tiny comments: firstly the Chamber contribution, which you’ve got labelled as Chamber of Commerce but obviously for artisans it’s actually the Chambre de Métiers, Chamber of Trades or whatever you want to call it (I think we would call it the Chamber of Industry in the UK) - might be helpful to any artisans looking at this to mention that, so they’re not confused over which chamber they’re contributing to.
Second comment you might decide not to bother with, but the prélèvement fiscal (line 2) is optional in the sense that in most cases you can opt to pay your income tax based on actual figures in the annual tax exercise, rather than at the flat rate as you go along. In fact some people (ie households with a high-ish total income, of which their ME earnings is only a small proportion) don’t have the option of paying at the flat rate, they have to pay on actual earnings. Plus, if your earnings are below the tax-free allowance then obviously it makes no sense choose to pay tax at a flat rate if the alternative is paying no tax at all.
Sorry if I confused things by mentioning 66% in a previous post. That is nothing at all to do with your ME cotisations since they are all based on turnover. However for all other administrative purposes, the significant figure is not turnover but income. So for each category of activity (commerçant, artisan, services, profession libérale) they have worked out the average profit:expenses ratio of turnover, which for prof lib is 66:34, and this is the formula used by the tax office to calculate your annual ‘income’ from the turnover you declared. Eg if your chiffre d’affaires from prof lib activities as a micro is 10000, and that is all the household earns, then the household income figure would be 6600. That is the figure you would provide every time you are asked your annual income. So it’s nothing to do with declaring your chiffre d’affaires and paying your cotisations, but it is an important figure nonetheless. And to go back to the income tax options: supposing you wanted to work out whether paying tax at the flat rate was advantageous to you or not, this is the figure you would look at to enable you to work out how much income tax you would have paid on that income in the annual tax exercise, and do the comparison. As a prof lib with a turnover of 10k your “income” of 6,600 would be below the tax threshold so it’s a no-brainer, opting to pay flat rate tax is disadvantageous.
Hope that makes sense!
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Hellooooo Anna. OK lots of help feedback from you thanks! Let me break it all down for my better understanding.
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ROW 9: On the “Guerilla AE / ME Social Charges & Tax Estimator” Google Sheet (herein referred to as the “Estimator” 
), are you saying I can completely remove Row 9? I think that’s what you mean and if so, thank god I’m in error there! Hah.
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CHAMBER: Ok nice to know! I have changed that field to read and the popup note to read “This is the contribution to the Chamber of Commerce relevant to your profession.” Do you think this is a better, more inclusive way to present this line item?
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Prélèvment Fiscal: Is this Row 8 in the Estimator? If so, do you think perhaps it’s better to break this out into another “Optional” section perhaps I can move this to Row 16 then have Row 17 as an alternate total for those who elect to pay income tax at the flat rate as they go along.
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66%: No worries! You were just trying to clarify things for me. Hmm I do need further guidance here though … should we add a row for Chiffre D’affaires net that is simply 66% of B4 (Chiffres d’affair brut) and rename row 15? Or am I still off here?
I think that’s me for now. Cheers!
ROW 9: On the “Guerilla AE / ME Social Charges & Tax Estimator” Google Sheet (herein referred to as the “Estimator” ), are you saying I can completely remove Row 9? I think that’s what you mean and if so, thank god I’m in error there! Hah.
Yes I think you can remove it. If people want to know what percentage they’re paying for cotisations + tax combined, they can add it up for themselves!
CHAMBER: Ok nice to know! I have changed that field to read and the popup note to read “This is the contribution to the Chamber of Commerce relevant to your profession.” Do you think this is a better, more inclusive way to present this line item?
Yes good solution -, or “Chamber relevant to your profession” because not necessarily "of Commerce"
Prélèvment Fiscal: Is this Row 8 in the Estimator? If so, do you think perhaps it’s better to break this out into another “Optional” section perhaps I can move this to Row 16 then have Row 17 as an alternate total for those who elect to pay income tax at the flat rate as they go along.
Yes I think that would work, sounds a good solution
66%: No worries! You were just trying to clarify things for me. Hmm I do need further guidance here though … should we add a row for Chiffre D’affaires net that is simply 66% of B4 (Chiffres d’affair brut) and rename row 15? Or am I still off here?
Quite honestly I think that since probably most people who use this will be just starting to get their heads round how it all works and are simply looking for a ball park figure to decide whether they want to pursue it or not, this would be information overload. What they need to know is what cotisations they would pay because that is the real whammy. If you put the income tax on as an “optional” section like you said, then they have enough information to make their decision and it’s up to them whether or not they want to dig deeper into the ins and outs of why it’s optional. Seems unnecessary to tie their brains in knots over a fraction of a percent income tax which is a drop in the ocean compared to cotisations and isn’t likely to be a deal breaker. Do you agree?
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@Anna Great!
ROW 9: Done!
CHAMBER: Cool to know. Done!
Prélèvment Fiscal/Row 8: Done! Moved to Row 17 (not 16) with total obligation of that charge underneath in Row 18.
Let me know if you have any other feedback and thank you for your continued input!
@Anna btw … Row 17 “Impots (IR)” … is that what we Anglais would just call “Income Tax”?
Also, do you know where I might find information on what happens or what the rates are for AE/ME who go above their maximums per year?
It it. Literally, IR = imposition/impôts sur le revenu = tax on income.
The rules for what happens when you exeed your turnover limit will be set out in various places but make sure you get an up to date version because I seem to recall they were tweaked recently, didn’t pay too much attention though because it’s not about to affect me 
(sorry can’t look for a link right now, tight schedule today - just waiting for my croissant to be ready before I start!). If I remember correctly, a bit more leeway was introduced. But basically if you exceed the threshold you have to change to a “grown up” business statut where you deduct expenses from turnover and pay cotisations and income tax on profit in the normal way.
IR: OK good to know!
@Anna how would you feel about helping me develop a spreadsheet for the next wrung up the ladder? (Is that SARL/EURL?)
All good if you want to opt out Just thinking could be great for folks who have to be bumped up to the next level (which I might be!)
sorry, couldn’t be any help with that - I know doodle squat about any business regime apart from micro. The reason I’ve stuck with it is that I’m reluctant to start trying getting to grips with anything more complex at this stage - it took me long enough to get my head round micro entreprise
Not sure how feasible a generic spreadsheet would be, since every business is going to be different and the income tax (IR!) you pay would depend on your family circumstances. But will be interested to see what you come up with.
Hah no worries, makes sense. It’s been - and continues to be - a heckuva journey just for micro. Hah. I’ll see if anyone shows up with some good kungfu on other business types and would be willing to guide me.
Do you think the current Estimator is good enough or is there other functionality you think should be included?
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Looks all good to me.
Just to add - you don’t necessarily have to go straight from micro to setting up a company. You can stay on BIC/BNC, ie a self-employed person as opposed to being the director of a company. The only difference is that you can’t use the supersimple micro-BIC/BNC accounting any more, basically because you have crossed the VAT threshold (the “turnover limit” is in fact the VAT threshold). But you can stay on the BIC/BNC Réel régime if you want. Bénéfices industriels et commerciaux (BIC) : régime réel d'imposition | Entreprendre.Service-Public.fr
(Before the auto entrepreneur schme was created, BIC/BNC Réel was the only option for self-employed. AE was introduced as a simplified version, for very small-scale businesses. But BIC Réel never stopped existing, and I believe it has itself been simplified recently to make it more user friendly).
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OK good to know @Anna … looks like I have more homework to do as we might be exceeding the turnover limit by a little bit.
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Good evening Dan & Anna
I’m kickin-in the discussion as I didn’t saw the conversation forked (I think my notifications on SFN aren’t working… my bad).
Your excel sheet looks really nice, haven’t tested it yet but it seems like something is missing… a bit complex to integrate but if your taxable income from 2 years ago exceed a certain threshold (roughly 26000€ per person) then you cannot apply for the ‘prelevement liberatoire’ and therefore the maths for the ‘Impot’ is totally different => In that case the calculations are even more interesting because you are only taxed on a certain amount of your turnover. 34% deduction if BNC, 50% is BIC, merch & gites are in the 70% ballpark but I can’t tell by heart.
Happy to follow-up on the topic if you’d like to improve the calculator… I’m actually happy to help creating a ‘Entreprise Individuelle’ calculator shall you think it would be interesting?
Cheers,
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Hey @fabien ! I think that would be awesome 
I’m going to be very time poor from now through to September as we are getting ready for our move here, then on the road for a couple months, then settling in our new home.
I’d love to see what you can come up with Enterprise Individuelle calculator. Do you want to start your own Google sheet or would you like access to the Guerilla Estimator or ? You tell me!
For those who can’t opt for the forfait, frankly I don’t see that it would be meaningfully to try and integrate income tax into this particular calculator because the ME income would no longer be separate, it would be merged into total household income and the rate applied would depend the total figure and the household ‘parts’ and allowances. Given that a) income tax rates would longer have any direct relationship to ME which surely is what this calculator is all about, b) updating the various tax rates and thresholds each year would be a job in itself and arguably a waste of effort in a way since it would be irrelevant to many/most MEs and c) this exercise couldn’t hope to cover all the possible permutations of household situation, I would take the view that it’s best simply to flag up, as I think has been done, that not everyone can opt for the forfait, point them towards the explanation of who can and who can’t, and let them take it from there. Just my view.
@Anna sounds sane. Although when it comes to all things French, I still don’t know what I don’t know, so @fabien my enthusiasm should be taken with my cluelessness in mind. You may wish to heed Anna’s counsel instead
Side note: Now that I have a rough sense of financial obligations to the state as AE / ME, I am now looking to learn more about the next sane “level up” from there.
@Anna Point taken but I disagree in the matter that the national taxes are calculated as a percentage per ‘slide of income’… These slices are quite easy to calculate and it makes sense to compare that as I’m working with a lot of AE / ME and most of them are in that dreadful slice of 26k - 33k…
To perform an analysis we just need to focus on a single person, and of course the final result will vary regarding each individual situation.
I think it’s quite important to include such a feature as when you are AE / ME and expect to pay 22% or 23% taxes it might change everything to be taxes 22% + 14% of 50% of your turnover (for example)…
I know I did it on my excel sheet and it gives me a first idea, mostly to compare ME with EI (Entreprise Individuelle)
Fair enough. I absolutely agree it’s crucially important. But I also wonder is focusing on a single person in the 26-33k bracket going to be relevant to most new anglophone MEs? Don’t the vast majority of Brits of working age move to France with a partner and very often a young family?
I just think that the calculator as it stands is excellent, it’s a useful, simple and virtually foolproof tool that anyone can play with and understand pretty much at a glance AS LONG AS they can benefit from the full simplicity of the ME including flat rate tax. If they can’t, ME loses part of its simplicity and you really need to start understanding how the tax system works, because a superficial understanding risks being misleading. IMHO.