Thanks Bev! Ohhhhhhh I loved Chartres. I do love the mtns too though, but that cathedral just blew me away. i kind of half-vowed that someday i'd be a little old lady with a flat or something somewhere i could see it out my window every day. maybe i will!
so....buying pretty much anyhting, you can add 20% for VAT onto the cost? ouch!
so there is no income tax but if you had to pay it you' have to kind of have it "on you" to send in each year? ouch again!
so if i earn about 3600 gross here and end up taking home about 2500 (after tax, 200 to savings, union, this fee that fee, will it be sort of equivalent? when yo usay 30% of your pay for rent, is that gross or net? that makes a big diff!
i think i'd be afraid of coming to france and starting my own biz. i dont do the bookkeeping and managing of it that well HERE. So then, what job would i do that a French person couldn't? HA! i can't think of any! I'm basically an administrative worker. i'd need a partner if i was to do the home biz i do here, over there.
Is there any work to be had in the whole expatriate community? Are there jobs that english speakers can do for english speakers? I plan to get much better at french, but still.
steph
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bevdeforges
Actually, I live not far from Chartres, but I'm probably not the best person to ask about comparative cost of living figures. One thing is for certain - just as the banks limit the payments on a mortgage to about 30% of your pay, you'd be hard pressed to find a landlord who will rent to you if the rent is more than about 30% of your pay, so use that as a rough guesstimate of your rental boundaries.
As far as take home pay is concerned, figure 22-24% is taken out of your gross salary for cotisations (social insurances, basically). There is no income tax withheld from your salary - you settle up on that the following year. Most cotisations are deducted from your gross salary in arriving at your "taxable income" figure - which is where you start for calculating income taxes. (And just for argument sake, use 90% of "taxable income" as the figure to calculate taxes because there is a sort of standard deduction of 10% of taxable income.)
It's tough working with the scenario you suggest, as it's kind of doubtful you could find a small house on an acre of land to rent. Best you might do is a house of about 100 m2 (considered a largish house) on 1000 - 2000 m2, which would give you lots of room for a garden. People who own horses generally board them on local farms if they don't have a piece of farm property of their own. Take a look at Particulier à particulier to get some feeling for rents - IMMOBILIER DE PARTICULIER A PARTICULIER. PAP.fr Annonces immobilières d'appartements et de maisons de particuliers. Location, achat et vente en immobilier.
Self-employment raises a whole different bunch of questions. Depending on your statut (i.e. how you have yourself set up), your cotisations might be a flat percentage of your gross take (i.e. revenue) or around 40% of your net business income. It depends on the type of business you're running, the level at which your business operates (over a certain level of revenue, you are no longer eligible for the flat rate system) and a few other factors.
Not quite what you wanted, but these financial things are kind of complicated in France. The good news is that something like half the residents of France wind up paying no income tax (though they still have to file each year). The government's main source of revenue is the VAT - which adds close to 20% to the cost of most goods and services in France when compared with the US.
Cheers,
Bev |