Stonefamily

So, if we budgeted for now at 45% total taxation/healthcare etc on income, we'd be about right ??. Food, energy, mortgage and luxuries etc would be extra obviously. If thats the case, and we could do it without a mortgage, life could be relatively comfortable......especially if we can add to our income with other ideas (I'm a photographer in the Uk and my wife owns a florist business. Both of these might help increase the coffers in due time....?

bigglesworth

Sounds healthy enough. Gites are a competitive business, but I know several peole who do well out of them. (And several who do not). All however put a lot of effort and thought into it. So time spent researching who your customer base will be, what the counter offers are, and how you can improve yours is time very well spent. I have one friend who is on average full 8-9 months of the year. But they have a pretty unique proposition.
A caveat. I think that if you want to work as a photographer, that wiull need membership of a trade body - perhaps a different business structure. Florist is a serious "artisan" occupation here, and like all such, pretty jealously defended. France is not like the UK where you can do a bit of this and a bit of that. EVERYTHING is regulated.
Having said that, people do work their way around the rules, they do manage to get by. Market stalls are a good example. You have to register them with the local trade body, but the people I know who have done it say that once the initial paperwork is dealt with, it gets much easier.
When I first joined the France forum, somebody said to me that in any meeting with a fonctionnaire, take every piece of paper you can think of. Because they can always find a reason to ask for another bit of bumph. It was the best bit of advice i have had.
But do not be put off by that, IME the fonctionnaires are much more helpful than their UK counterparts. They are polite, and constructive. Some ven speak English. Although they all vastly prefer us to struggle with French

EuroTrash

Possibly, but it does depend how you set things up. Sorry, I know I keep saying this, but it does. The thing is that if you and your OH both work in the business, you are both going to have to pay cotisations. If one or both of you is paid a salary as an employee, the charges will be higher (the cover is be better too because employees accrue entitlement to unemployment benefit). Try sticking some figures into this simulator which will tell you what you woud pay if you did it this way Rémunération du dirigeant / chef d’entreprise : TNS affilié RSI ou Assimilé-salarié ? Notre simulateur. - I put in a figure of 40k at the top, a director's salary of 15k and an employee o minimum wage, and the total cotisations came out at 27k ish.

If you want to make your plan bullet proof, you really do need to do projections for various different business structures.

Don't forget the overheads, obviously, which I think are generally reckoned to be around 70 per cent for that sector and there will probably be other business taxes too, again, it depends how yous set the business up. There is a tax called CFE which just about every business pays but is impossible to quantify because the rate is set by each commune, and is also income related. Apparently it can be anywhere between approx 300€ and 1000€ for small businesses, mine this year is slightly less than the official minimum, go figure so maybe I got a reduction for being poor.

dmu

I would say 45% for healthcare alone (the famous côtisations). Income Tax and various professional taxes is another matter. Bearing in mind my experience, don't give yourselves too high salaries, if you're not sure of your annual clientèle.
As mentioned, any business other than the gîte would have to be set up as separate business structures. If your sons have commercially saleable talents, they could start up a business each and be covered by the appropriate healthcare organisations.

Stonefamily

45% of income for healthcare seems extreme ??

dmu

As I said, I paid 50% of my salary in social côtisations, but then an Sàrl was different from the present Auto-Entrepreneur/Micro-entreprise, and I also paid into a "Caisse des Cadres", a Pension Fund for "executives" (LOL).
Impossible to give you the percentage of Income Tax on my salary, as it was included with my OH's in our joint Declaration.
Someone more in the know will correct my 45% statement, which may not apply to you!
Which reminds me that, whatever côtisations you pay, you, as business managers, aren't entitled to dole money if you close shop.

Tweedpipe

Especially ven they've had too much red wine at lunchtime.

EuroTrash

Not when you've lived here for a while, you get used to it

If you try the simulator that you have a link to, you'll see how it all adds up.

As a specific personal example, I do pretty much the same "work" (I use the term loosely) here as I used to do in the UK. In the UK my NICs as self employed were a few hundred a year max, sometimes zero because I got the low earnings exemption. By comparison, during the last 12 months I've paid around 5k in sécu cotisations, most of which is for healthcare (and that's not counting a mutuelle). I work harder now, because I have to or I wouldn't survive. I wouldn't say I have any more disposable income.

Stonefamily

Thanks guys. so......in summary, by earning the same as in the UK, your net bottom line disposable income is about the same (give or take a little), they just add it up differently??

EuroTrash

Well speaking personally, mine is significantly less, because as I think I said but maybe didn't explain very well, I work harder and have a higher turnover here but I end up with no more than I had in the UK where I didn't work as hard and a lower turnover. I had to increase my rates because I soon discovered that I couldn't afford to work here for the rates I could work for in the UK, which makes me uncompetitive compared to competitors in the UK. That would be something you needed to consider for eg the photography activity.

babyposer

No you get less because there are far more money taken from your wage.