Though you surely couldn’t have commuted weekly because you’d have to quarantine for 10 days?
The cross border worker category is back on the exemptions list but entitled ‘regular work abroad’ - reads like UK resident frontier worker- but does say one would be allowed out to go to work (only).
And then says if in France you have to follow the ‘standard’ amber rules - whatever these are lol…
And you’d have to get another set of phizer or whatever to get the NHS exemption certificate! (which doesn’t count at the mo anyway). We could do a collection - one for each country! Crazy…
I’ve got a bit confused as what you think is unfair?
The UK pays for my health care by dint of OH’s pension and S1 from a working life of paying NI in the UK. But we are not exempt from all the other social charges, and they created their solidarity tax of 7.5% to get round this as well. We pay more in social charges/solidarité tax than we do in income tax.
quarantine no issue as they were all working offsite till October. but you’d have still needed to get food etc. Plus travel to UK with no social distancing etc., and even if did Test to Release there was still risk. Delta spreading like wildfire whereas 2m distance had been advised for that. The danger in the UK was the final straw that made the rest a total overload.
Yes I would be that same situation with social charges potentially higher. But I had understood social charges broadly aligned with NI in the UK and that UK paid everything for us if our source of earnings was in the UK presumably on some sort of flat rate per person basis
Social charges aren’t one thing, although the non-French often refer to them as such. There is an “assiette” and it is a plateful! There is the CSG which is the general charge, plus the CRDS which is the contribution remboursement à la dette sociale. Then other little delights such as CASA, the contribution for solidarité pour l’autonomie. (Which is not the same as the 7.5%solidarité tax). And for salaried workers some other bits and bobs.
So the health part is just one element of this. The UK used to pay a flat rate per person, which I had understood was actually quite modest so no incentive to want pensioners coming back to UK and clogging up the NHS. But I believe that with more sophisticated technology now available it is actual costs. I certainly know to a centime what my health costs are each year.
You won’t pay the health element on any income where you pay NI, and I don’t pay the health element on my pension, but I do pay the full range on everything else.
Have you done a French tax return yet? As that will give you precise details.
Thx Angela for your reply but I have to disagree…I finally spoke on the phone after several emails with a French Tax specialist in France and she was very clear about the fact that if I rent my UK house while I rent in France for 2 years and then sell it to buy a French property …well I will be taxed in UK and receive a tax credit in France …standard way of dealing with this sort of cases.
Im intrigued who confirmed to you about being illegal
Thank you for taking the time to reply…can you pls explain in more details one of your points ? will copy and paste below
-So you get a credit of the actual amount of UK CGT against the France CGT calculated (and no more)-
Based on my calculation on if I do sell my UK property mines 2x allowances I will pay 4k while based on french rules calculation will be possibly 25 k plus .
The french tax specialist confirmed that the tax credit in France against what I paid or will pay in uk will fully wave any CGT tax in France
Only thing she did not mention and I will ask her if I will be charged any social charges?..possibly being Italian and french will have some benefits …lol
Ah - that makes sense then! I had assumed (obviously wrongly) that you aready had a house in France, in which case the one in the UK would be a second one (as mine was considered, even though I had lived in it for 23 years). If you only have one property and sell it to buy another one, there is no problem (provided there isn’t too big a gap between the two activities!)
I wish you all the best with the venture - nothing is simple, is it?
So on your calcs you would have 25 - 4K UK tax credit GCT in France? = 21K ?
It is an interesting thread because a lot seem to be in your boat!
Whilst we won’t know until the time comes, and indeed individual inspectors /tax offices lead to variations in treatment, I think all who sail in your ship be very interested in why your tax specialist is so insistent the 4K UK tax writes off / cancels the France CGT. Any chance you could come back with her argument on why the DTT doesn’t work / apply as we read it, and any backup stuff, e.g. French tax bulletin on the matter? (these are the official advice given to tax inspectors / offices).
And obvs any heads up on the take on the social charges equally interesting…
Hi ‘JJones’ - should we still put real names into posts?
If you mean the France main residence exemption from CGT, won’t it cease to be a main residence if you let it? I think I’ve got internet stuff saying you can leave it empty to keep the exemption, but you can’t rent it or even let people stay for nothing, e.g. family members. And the internet suggested a 1 year gap.
When I say internet this was blevins or one of the other UK/france FA’s.
And obviously if you rent it - a ‘rental income’ will appear on the France tax radar assuming it’s declared (as it should be) - unless its declared generally as other income - haven’t done a france tax return with rental yet! (That will be another thread…)
Interestingly one of the FA’s I had a discussion with said the France head of tax in Paris insisted the law indicates main residence CGT exemption only applies to French property! Though the FA said he’d never heard a local tax office refusing an exemption…
interpretation … having said that I have suffered recently in the UK with similar interpretation between solicitors and ‘tax experts’ … my advice would be to sometimes get two opinions rather than just one (as we did in 2008) something that came back and bit us on the arse in 2018 when my father passed away.
It’s completely fine to call me Jane! Only a few hundred million Jane’s in the world…
I have only ever sold a second home in the UK, so the position was very simple. And v little capital gain anyway! But it does seem there is a rather large grey area about main residences that you aren’t occupying, but are yet to acquire another main residence. So rather hard to be definitive especially as the final judgement will be with the tax inspectors tho’, and they can be stubborn.
Declaring UK rental is easy peasy! On both sides of the Channel.
Not sure I follow…renting in France someone else property…while renting in UK your property…makes the UK property the official second home so liable to CGT in UK and not in France.
Will def seek more then one official opinion…I think its such grey area and I see and read a lot of confusion.
thx
Hi larkswood, just replying to your last questions…finally the french lawyer in Paris answered my last questions…thats her reply on cgt on a uk rented property while you live in France
“UK source real estate capital gains received by a French tax resident are taxable in France and in the UK. In order to avoid a double-taxation on the income, article 6 of the UK/France tax treaty states that you will be granted a tax credit equals to the tax you should have paid in France on this income. Thus no taxation but will be taken into account in your income tax rate”
Many thanks for coming back - remember I’m not any trained expert, it does seem to me your lawyer has conflated the tax credit treatment of e.g. UK taxed pension, with UK CGT and treated them the same, whereas they are different. I wondered this when Article 6(?) was mentioned instead of Article 14 - CGT.
I’m very aware there is always a human desire to hold to the advice which really suits us and appears to help further our goals - I think it is a good practice though to ask ‘how would the other side see this’ or ‘what are the potential negative findings’ which could be made in a case.
If I may be so bold to offer, here it would be, be prepared for a situation where you do pay french CGT, the pain ameliorated by the UK CGT one definitely has to stump up. Of course, when you sally forth armed with your accountants opinion into the friendly france tax inspector’s den I hope your lawyer will prevail!
Sadly there seems to be a dearth on SF of people saying “yes they accepted that” etc, though at the end of the day I suspect it might be down to what box on the return you can put the gain in - and there’s an idea, why not ask your lawyer what boxes you would fill in and test the scenario on the France tax simulator?
And my lesson(s) learned from the thread - yes, get second opinions, then third opinions, don’t trust any one lawyer, and budget for the worst case scenario!
All the best and once again, thanks for taking the time to check with your advisor. My original reading of the DTT replicated below.
not quite… that is the same wording for income tax too which was modified by Gordon Brown in his day.
What it actually means is contained in the earlier words:
If the tax you would have paid in France is greater, then you will pay the difference but you will not receive a refund from HMG in the event it is the other way about.
Semantics perhaps, but there is an important difference and many misunderstand this rule thinking they are exempt from French tax as a consequence of the DTT, whereas in truth, this is not the case.
re your Worldwide Income… on your French Declaration…
If you have omitted something … or made a mistake … or whatever…
anything to do with Income… do take your courage in both hands and tell the Impots folk.
They are not ogres and will help you through the mire… and safely out the other side.
and to reinforce the point made by @Stella the window for making changes to your tax submission for 2020 is now open (since 4th August 2021). This post in the Tax 2021 topic tells you how.
