Magukat

Good morning

Would the tax be issued if you are not registered as a tax payer in France?
How to find the tax if you've moved since then and have no access to the property where the tax could have been posted to?
And technically how does this process work: The person moves to France, rents a flat, signs his/her first tenancy contract for 1 year. Then I assume it's the agency that will submit to the tax office the new tenant's details, correct? Or would it be the flat owner?

dmu

Hi, just to clarify,
Leases for unfurnished properties are for 3 years. Presumably this short-term rental is a furnished property? Is the tenant a student? In either case there are several official Service-Public links concerning furnished property and student rentals which can be posted.
Generally it's the occupier (owner or tenant) on 1st January of each year who is liable to pay the TdH. It's the owner who declares the tenant's name (and address) in his/her Déclaration de Revenus, and the Tax Office goes on from there. I don't know how they contact you after you've left....
Some one more in the know will come along if you give more details.
HTH

Magukat

Thank you for the reply. It was a 1-year furnished flat (not a student rent). The contract started in Dec and was terminated prematurely on the 1st of Feb as shortly after moving in we descovered issues that neither the agency nor the owner notified about (fraud)
Looking back I remember our names on the letter box were removed shortly after we added them and the names on the interphone were never introduced over those 1.5-2 months (despite numerous requests to do so and promises that it will happen) We were told that and it's the syndic that is too slow , but maybe they were simply never made aware of our presence ? ) . So if it's down to the owner to declare the tenants(not the agency), then the chances are that she never did it if the owner is keeping the head below the radar.

EuroTrash

Bottom line is that the tax office will have issued a bill and they will expect it to be paid.
So I guess it all depends on whether the tenant can be tracked down or not.
The danger is that if the tenant is tracked down some time later, there will be late payment fines added.
If an agency is involved and there is a syndic, it would all appear to be above board and the owner can't exactly be keeping below the radar.

Magukat

The agent from the agency was the owner's friend. The Syndic as I said might was never notified of our presence.I know it sounds over the top but that story was very dodgy, so I wouldn't be surprised.
I agree looks like the only way to get any clarity is to go to the tax office .

I can't get my head around the process though. How do they issue a tax bill to someone who is not registered for tax purposes here? Nothing stops you from renting a flat for years but using it for your weekend breaks, i.e spending most of the year elsewhere and not being reqired tto register for tax in France

EuroTrash

I think what most holiday holiday home owners do is ask the tax office to send the invoice to their home address. The tax office has different procedures for second homes and residences principales in any case (for resident taxpayers the taxe d'habitation for the residence principal is calculated based on their income with reductions or exemptions for low earners/elderly folk, whereas there are no reductions or exemptions for second homes) so it's perfectly normal for them to send second home tax notices to the principal address of the occupier, be it in France or abroad.

Magukat

Thank you for the reply, however it seems you are talking about the ownership, whilst my question was about the rent: "Nothing stops you from renting a flat for years but using it for your weekend breaks, i.e spending most of the year elsewhere and not being reqired to register for tax in France"

Magukat

One example out of many: Some person lives in London, but his ex-partner & kids are living in France.
To visit his kids this guy has rented an apartment in France somewhere not far from where his kids & ex-partner live. He has 1(-2-3) years rental agreement for résidence secondaire (or principale).
This guy works&spends most of his time in London, thus he is not a tax resident in France. All he does he travels here every now and then to see kids in the apartment that he is "perpetually" renting.
So tax office needs to issue the tax d'habitation against the person, who is not registered for tax here...

EuroTrash

No, I wasn't talking about owners specifically - I just said 'holiday home owners' because I think most Brits do own rather than rent their second homes. But whether you rent or own the property, makes no difference to the taxe d'habitation or the billing process. TdH is paid by the person who lives at, or has the right to be living at that property on 1st January, whether as tenant or as owner-occupier.
The owner of the property pays a separate tax, which is called taxe foncière. So in the case of an owner occupier the same person pays both taxes, in the case of a rented property the owner pays the foncière and the tenant pays the habitation..Again, the owner can be tax resident in France or non tax resident; either way, they are liable for the tax.
Property taxes ("taxes" in French - taxe d'habitation and taxe foncière) are not the same thing as what we Brits call income tax. The French call income tax an "impôt", not a "taxe".
The principal residence of a tax resident is by definition the address they write on their "impôts" declaration, and that's the address the tax office will use unless instructed otherwise. For second homes, it's normal for the tax office to send the bills to a correspondence address which is normally the person's permanent address - which again can be a property they own or a property they rent, and which may be in another country or another address in France. If you haven't given the tax office a correspondence address they will use the property address, and if that doesn't reach you then I don't know what they do. Normally people do try to make sure that the tax office knows where to send the bills so as to avoid confusion.

dmu

So, according to the link below, you're liable to pay the Taxe d'Hab since you were occupying the furnished property on 1st January. I would contact your local Tax Office asap in order to avoid facing fines for late payment.
https://www.service-public.fr/partic...osdroits/F1065

Magukat

Obviously if I didn't know about the 1 of Jan, I wouldn't have bothered asking the question and then explicitly mentioning that it's not a holiday rent and give the example above, would I?
How these "rules from the book" work in practice in such a basic scenario - looks like no one knows apart from the Tax office.

dmu

It seems you're right, you're the first to have asked about this particular situation and no one else has experienced it.
As suggested, ask at your Tax Office (Pages Jaunes, enter "Centre des Finances Publiques" and your Postal Code and click on "à proximité" if necessary).
Good luck!

EuroTrash

Well if you know the rules, I don't see the mystery.
It's assumed that, knowing their obligations, people will make the appropriate arrangements to pay their dues.
If you don't, I guess it's up to the individual tax office how much time and effort it wants to put into pursuing you.

Magukat

Hope my french will be good enough to explain the story to the tax man and get clarifications along with the bill
Thank you both for your help!

Magukat

In case anyone also needs :
To find the right tax office to deal with the particular type of request use the following link: https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/contacts