phippsmaz1

Hello everyone, I have just joined your forum for some much needed advice and answers to questions, I do hope you can oblige. Me my Hubby and our adult Son have been living in Spain for the last 7 years but as we are getting older Hubby and me are struggling with the intense heat in the summer. When we first decided to leave the UK our first choice was France but were very worried about how we would make a living so opted for Spain because of the amount of English speaking residents. My Hubby is a Panel Beater Sprayer and has been doing this for over 40 years. Here in Spain he has had no problem in making a good living at first he used to be completely mobile doing the work at peoples homes or place of work, then eventually he was able to rent a yard so now does the majority of his work there. It was very easy sourcing materials car breakers etc, so one of my questions is this if we were to move say to the Potiou-Charentes area do you think he would be able to do the same there. Here in Spain to be self employed it costs in the region of 300 euros per month how does that compare to costs in France. I have chosen the Potiou-Charentes region because on reading other forums etc there seems to be an awful lot of expats wanting to swap their exsisting homes for homes in that region. Of course other regions would be explored before any final decisions would be made. Well I am going to leave my question asking there for the moment and wait with baited breath for your informative replies.

dennerlymum

Hi there
it is difficult to say how much the charges are to run a business as it depends on turnover in France. There are others more knowledgeable than me but suffice to say it cost from 26 - 40% of takings depending on the type of business you set up

Good luck with the move

phippsmaz1

Thank you for taking the time to reply, it seems that it is a much fairer taxation system in France compared to Spain, here we have to pay the 300 euros every month whether we have made any money or not, and woe betide anyone that wants to opt out of the system say for illness or some other valid reason, its near on impossible. I was just wondering if any of you already living there would use the services of a mobile motor body repairer or do you prefer to use the big garages. Basically where do you go to get your car repaired if you have an accident and you don't want to go down the insurance route.

Ka Ora!

Welcome to the forum, If you get any issues give myself Sue or Mitzyboy a shout

phippsmaz1

Thank you very much for that

dmu

Hi, the 250€ (?) per month that Auto-Entrepreneurs pay, is to cover compulsory S.S. healthcare. I've no idea about the percentage of Income/Company tax.

If your French is OK,
http://www.lautoentrepreneur.fr/
gives all necessary info, including the fact that the maximum annual turnover is limited to 32,600 € (which means that it's impossible to employ a second person), but you could make a forum search (top right) for Auto-Entrepreneurs and find questions and answers from BE members.
Hope this helps!

phippsmaz1

Thank you Ka Ora whoops already posted that, bare with me till I get the hang of it LOL

phippsmaz1

Thankyou dmu a very informative website that will take me ages to read

dennerlymum

As an auto entrepreneur you only pay anything if you have earned anything; at least for the first 2 years I think... at least that's what i did!

dmu

Edited later: I understood from other threads that there was a lump sum to be paid for S.S. coverage, whatever the monthly earnings were, but various sites do indeed state that you only pay a percentage on what you earn.
Does this mean that, if you're an A-E and don't earn much, you're still covered for healthcare in the same way as some one in the Régime Général, but without paying any côtisations?

phippsmaz1

Yes I am very interested in the answer to this question as we are not retired yet and hubby takes cholesterol/blood pressure tablets healthcare is of course a priority.

dennerlymum

er no!!!
fraid not; I was ok as an autoentrepreneur as I had a paying job as well which was enough for health care. If not take care!

Peabrain

Depends, dunnit. Most insurance companies here have "garages agréés", which means that if you have a shunt and need bodywork that is covered by insurance, then if you have it done by a recognized garage that has an agreement with your insurer you don't have to pay up front and then wait to get reimbursed. Always assuming you've got fully comprehensive insurance.

If I'm only third party or didn't want a job done under insurance I would probably go to a regular garage anyway, as I would know what they're worth, and how well equipped they are. It's basically a question of trust, reliability and past record. On t'other 'and, if I were only 3rd party I'd probably be driving a wreck anyway and so wouldn't bother having it repaired. Would a French person use the services of a mobile body repairer that can't speak French? I doubt it, somehow. It's a very hard question to answer.
Good luck though,
PB

dmu

That's what I thought. In fact it sounded too good to be true!
So, the lump sum that I've heard about must be the Mutuelle?
This doesn't concern me as I'm retired, but it's interesting to know what I missed in the past!

phippsmaz1

Thankyou so much for all your replies all information is so valuable. It goes without saying that learning the language in the same way we learnt Spanish would also be on the priority list.