manctofu

Hello

I am moving to France in a couple of months and am wondering about the tax implications of an amount I have in a UK bank account.

I know that I must declare this amount when I complete a French tax return, but what I'm not sure of is what exactly will be subject to taxation?

Will I have to pay French income tax on the whole amount (which has already been taxed in the UK) or only on any interest earned?

Could I simply move it to a non interest-bearing account and not pay any tax on it at all?

What happens if and when I want to transfer the amount to a French bank account? Will I be taxed on it then?

Sorry for the bombardment, any help will be most appreciated.

brioche

It's the interest (i.e. the income) that's taxed, not the amount of money in the account. This principle applies in France as it does in the UK.

The interest will be taxable only in France once you move there, since the UK–France double taxation treaty states that bank interest is taxable only in the country of residence. You declare it on CERFA form 2047 (Déclaration des revenus encaissés à l'étranger) and then add the amount to your main tax return.

See my previous post for how to claim back UK tax deducted at source.

You could.

Simply moving money between your own accounts doesn't give rise to a tax liability. If the French account generates interest, and it's not tax-exempt (e.g. Livret A), then that interest will need to be declared.

Also, you'll need to declare the existence of all foreign (i.e. non-French) bank accounts each year, whether they generated income or not. This involves ticking a box on the tax return and supplying a separate sheet with all the details.

manctofu

Thanks a lot for your reply, brioche.

Novocastrian

How much savings are we talking here? I think the threshold for wealth tax in France is 1.2M euros.

Chatter Static

When I hit it I will tell you.

bigglesworth

Novocastrian

And very soon after that I'll be dropping by for a pint...

Chatter Static

You will find me at the club

cjm

Behind, under or owning .....

Chatter Static

More of a on top club..

cjm

Do you read your posts after you hit enter and realise what a pl*n*er your post is (that's not good grammar, but you know what I mean)? My sad brain said bar, hence the poor attempt at humour.. DOH!!

Im_and_Er

That might be technically correct but I declared my two UK bank A/C with my first tax return several years ago and have not re-declared them since.

I have nothing to hide it's just that until a year or two ago I didn't know they were supposed to be declared every year so didn't.

There is actually a proper form for it (this IS France !) but a list on a plain sheet of paper will suffice.

http://web1.droitissimo.com/sites/ww..._de_France.pdf

EuroTrash

It says on the tax form that you can be fined 500€ or something per account that you don't declare.
So last year I tried to fill in the official forms but I wasn't sure what my accounts were classed as so I took them along with me and asked the man at the impots (this being a special man they'd fetched from upstairs, because nobody else knew what to do about me because I'd earned a few hundred PAYE in the UK). He looked at the forms and said he didn't want them. I said, but don't I have to tell you about my accounts in the UK? No, not as far as I know, he said.
So I didn't, and I've been worrying about it all year, so this time I will.

Im_and_Er

I'm uncertain what you mean by saying that you were unsure of what your accounts were 'classed as'. Surely a foreign bank or building society account can only be defined as an account held outside of France, what else ?

Also the fact that you earned money as a PAYE employee is a completely separate issue to where those earnings were deposited, as is how much you earned.

An employer could have paid you in cash or deposited your earnings into an account in France for instance, or paid you by UK cheque which you could have taken somewhere like Cash Converters to turn into real money. There are several possibilities which would have resulted in the money never going anywhere near any bank account you held either in UK or France.

PAYE earnings are almost the easiest thing to declare, you do it in section VII on form 2047

Do we take it that last year was your first declaration ?

Personally I would be extremely wary of advice given by a French fonctionnaire in those sort of circumstances.

For my first declaration, several years ago now, I had been a UK PAYE employee for most of that year and was unsure how to declare that so did what seemed to be the proper thing and went to my local Impots to ask.

I was referred to their so called 'UK expert' who duly told me that I would have to pay French tax on my gross UK earnings and then claim the PAYE tax I had paid in UK back from HMRC.

For as little as I knew at that time I did know that that was complete and utter nonsense so I politely said thank you and left eventually determining from another Brit in the same position how it should be done.

EuroTrash

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear - there was no issue with the tax form itself, it was my 4th declaration, but I ask them to check it before I submit it and as soon as they see there is something written in the overseas bit they always go and dig out the same man. He's a nice chap and he seems to know how it all works, everything he has told me has proved to be 100% correct.

What I wanted to know, and he wouldn't tell me, was simply how to fill in the bank-account-declaring form - what are the characteristiques of the account? what's the forme juridique of my entreprise, and what if I use it as both a personal and a business account?
http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portal/dep...laire_5517.pdf
but if they accept details on piece of paper, that's what they'll get this year.