bazzer70

sorry - just read EuroTrash's post...
will France be happy for me to live in France for the remainder of the year (365 days minus those days the UK wants me to be in the UK to be a UK taxpayer) without them wanting me to be paying taxes to them?
what I am asking really is:
I plan to be in the UK long enough each year to remain a UK taxpayer. HOWEVER - I will be in France for the remainder - 300 odd days - will that be OK with the French?

EuroTrash

Well if you're an EU citizen they're unlikely to notice you've outstayed your three months as a visitor so the question won't arise.
If an issue were to arise, it wouldn't be about paying taxes in France because if you're tax resident in the UK then you're tax resident in the UK, and if you don't have any French sourced income then you have nothing to declare to the French taxman. It's simply a case of, you don't technically have the right to spend more than three months here as a visitor. As said previously, freedom of movement says that EU citizens can spend up to 3 months in another EU state as a visitor, it doesn't say they can stay as long as they like, but France doesn't make an issue of it. I don't know how happy they are about it but they seem OK with it, they must know people do it and they don't stop them. However for a non EU citizen it may not be so simple. They are not as tolerant when it comes to third country immigration as they are about EU folk taking liberties with FoM.

cyrian

Hi Bazzer
That really complicates things although with an Irish passport it makes movement easier.
If you are married, does your OH have an Irish passport?
If you live for the majority of the year in France then France will try to grab you for taxation in that you trigger their residency rules.
It doesn't matter if you establish a number of days for residency in the UK.
HMRC would also want to keep you if you trigger their residency rules.
It would then be down to both countries tax offices to decide between them who gets to keep you.
I have stated before on this forum that I have a french accountant friend and as far as he is concerned, if you spend more than 183 days in France then you are resident. That is because he only knows the French residency rules.
Many French people retire to Portugal because there are tax exemptions for expats and their money goes further.
As far as inheritance is concerned, the best way to avoid IHT or Capital Gains in France is to rent instead of buying.
That has been discussed on the forum if you do a search.
HTH

EuroTrash

Cyrian is of course entirely correct in theory, but, in practice, from what I've seen around me, the French tax office do not go around trying to grab people. It's the individual's responsibility to make themselves known to the tax office if they consider themselves to be resident, and if they don't do it, the tax office isn't likely to know they're here unless a "situation" arises. Honestly, simply being here doesn't trigger anything. Even if a person at the tax office did happen to notice that Bazzer seems to be here rather a lot, and decided to call you in, then if you can show a UK tax return, unless you are very very rich (are you?) it would be highly unlikely that the fisc would bother spending man hours starting an investigation and arguing the toss with HMRC. Especially since residents get various tax breaks that non residents don't get, such as in many cases paying significantly lower property taxes, so depending on your revenue streams they could even end up out of pocket.

However, if you are in the high income bracket, obviously you need to be a lot more careful.

bazzer70

Thaks so much cyrian and EuroTrash
Portugal isn't ruled out yet - I just thought France could be easier in terms off access should I remain a UK resident rather than going the whole change of residency tax etc
I'll let you know how I get on!

EuroTrash

Another thing to bear in mind about France is that even if you're not tax resident here, any property you own here is subject to French succession law. In the case of a property owned jointly by an unrelated couple, ie not married and not pacs'd, in the event of one of you inheriting the other's share, there would be 60% inheritance tax to pay. No way round that (apart from getting married or pacs'd).