Expat Forum For Expats, For Moving Overseas And For Jobs Abroad - France Expat Forum for Expats Living in France

UK Citizen UK Employed

misterk — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:17:15 GMT

Hi,
I currently work from home and was thinking i'd like to try to do that in France perhaps in the Loire region. What would the tax implications/ legalities be regarding this. I am fully employed under PAYE currently.

thanks in advance

Help for an American!

sloanetr — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:53:26 GMT

I am currently doing an internship in Paris, but have to return to the States in January to finish my studies at my university and graduate in May. I plan on moving to France permanently right after that, so I am trying to find a job right now. I have two main questions and I hope some Americans who have been through the same thing can help me out because this process is extremely difficult!

1. I e-mailed a company to see if they had any openings, and they told me to e-mail them my resume, and also my proposed residence, visa status and work permission in the EU. My question is: what would I put as my visa status? From what I understand, an American can not get a work visa unless they have a job, and if they get a long-stay visa instead they can't have a paid professional activity. How does this work?

2. My second question is concerning a long-stay visa. They ask you to state what your business in France is, and I have no idea what I would put for that. My boyfriend is French and he is the reason that I want to move to France, but I can't very well put that on my visa application. Do any other Americans have a long-stay visa and can give me some advice?

This whole situation is confusing and I would like to try and get it sorted out as soon as possible. Please help if you can! Thanks so much!

The public service sector - reforms real or imaginary?

frogblogger — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:46:44 GMT

Just over ten years ago, an extremely insightful book about the French was published; "On The Brink", by Jonathan Fenby. For a shrewd look into the intricate depths of the French psyche, it's right up there with the best works of its kind.

More than a decade on, how have things changed since Fenby's appreciation? Now and again I'll post an extract from his book - on this occasion on the subject of France's civil servants. So with all the promises from first Chirac, and now Sarkozy, has anything changed? Hmm...

"This state which cannot accept that any part of national life is beyond its reach is by far the biggest employer in the country. Its civil servants make up a quarter of the workforce - compared to 14-15 per cent in Britain and Germany. Their salaries take up almost one-sixth of the national income. As for the general belief that selfless civil servants are less well-paid than their peers in the private sector, an independent study in 1994 showed the reverse to be true in non-executive jobs. Despite the declining numbers of farmers, the Agricultural Ministry still employs as many functionaries as it did a decade ago. Long after the last big war, the Ex-Servicemen's Ministry costs 4 billion euros* a year. Reform of other sectors of national life may be on the agenda, but not the sacred caste of the functionaries of the state. Whereas public-sector companies have been put under the spotlight, readied for privatisation or gone through painful slimming cures, the state has left its great administrative army alone. One investigation suggested that the number of hidden civil service scandals might exceed those that had come to light elsewhere - but no investigating magistrates have stuck their noses into the inner workings of the nation's administrative machinery. A list of white elephants spawned by bureaucratic incompetence drawn up by the magazine Le Point contained some of the following gems: the 130 million-euro high-speed train station at Lyon airport that handles only 500 passengers a day; the railway construction in Normandy where a new platform was built 300 metres away from the station; a 11 million-euro museum in Nice which was still empty ten years after being commissioned; a projected road tunnel in Toulon which collapsed and was abandoned after 200 million euros had been spent on it; a planned conference centre in Paris which remained unbuilt despite the expenditure of 120 million euros; and a road bridge in Normandy with no road connected to it. No heads have rolled, or not to the knowledge of the taxpayer who footed the bill in each case. From teachers to mandarins, the civil service is unaccountable to anybody except itself. A damning report by an Inspecteur des Finances who had been close to the Socialists spoke of a looming disaster caused by the failure of successive governments to get to grips with the size and cost of the public-service sector."

Fenby will have penned that some twelve or thirteen years ago. My impression is that hardly anything has changed for the better. Occasionally we hear of the wrong sort of civil servant being targeted - limiting the supply of new teachers for example, increasing class sizes. But the red tape functionaries, ie not the front line teachers and nurses, seem as ever to escape unscathed.

*francs - in the original edition - I've converted to approx. equivalent in euros

Back to the UK for the over 50's

Gapster — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:44:15 GMT

Hi just a quick 'hello' to all as I'm a newcomer.

I've been here for just over 3yrs and plan to move back to the UK within the next couple.

To date we've had a fantastic adventure, done more things in 3yrs than we would have done being stuck in the rat-race back in London, and contrary to many people, we've had nothing but good experiences right from the off with the French locals - everyone has been kind and helpful. No doubt this has something to do with my wife being French/Belgian so we had a head start with integrating.

I'm curious to know who else is, or has. moved back and what are your thoughts on relocation, employment, reconnecting with the 'British' lifestyle etc?

regards to all
Paul

If you were us, would you buy a vehicle in France or the UK?

suninspired — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:52:32 GMT

Hi, again. We have peculiar circumstances and are hoping that maybe ...just maybe... someone has similar experience and can advise.

Our situation is different to most in that as Brit/Canadians we're looking to move from Canada to France. We intend buying a motorhome to tour France and get a feel for whereabouts we'd like to settle. But to purchase and register a motorhome in France we'd need to first have a physical address (which would put the cart before the horse, so to speak). Is there a way we could purchase and register a motorhome in France without having a physical address? Obviously, the circumstances would be the same if it were just a car we were wanting to buy, so if the motorhome issue confuses folks, simply think "car" instead of "motorhome".

We could, instead, purchase a LHD motorhome in the UK using our UK address (property owned together with my folks who live there). And then we could come across to France and tour as planned. But that means duplicate costs of registering in the UK and then again later in France. And it also means being restricted to less choice in LHD Euramobil, Hymer, Rapido, Pilote etc vehicles available in the UK.

Another obstacle is the conversion of our Canadian driving licences. France doesn't recognise British Columbia licences for reciprocation, but we could hand in our licences in the UK and get UK licences (and later convert to French). France recognises South African drivers' licences for reciprocation but ours have now expired since living in Canada.

So what would you do?

Apartment rental agencies?

expatwannabe2010 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:22:39 GMT

Can anyone recommend an agency with good service and a low fee, to help find an apartment in Paris?

Changing visas mid-stream

expatwannabe2010 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:45:55 GMT

Hello! I'm still trying to figure out the best way for me to move to France...

I am considering taking classes at EICAR next fall, but I want to move to Paris in early spring. The only way I can figure out how to do this is if I am able to change visas before going to school, if I do choose to attend (depends on circumstances a year from now!)

If I were to get a long-stay visa and arrive in France in say, March, would I have to come back to the states to change it to a student visa, or could I change it there?

Also, if I were to get a job offer, would I have to return to the states to change to a work visa, or would the company deal with that in France?

And looking even further ahead, if the job only lasted a month or so, would I have to find a way to get back the long-stay visa to complete my year, or what?

Thank yoooou. :-D

Shipping pets to France

expatwannabe2010 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:20:58 GMT

I'm moving to France next year and trying to figure out how to get my pets there with me. I have a small dog and a cat, and I want to fly them from Los Angeles to Paris. So far the only quote I got was about $1500!! This seems extremely high, seeing as I bring my dog on planes with me for about $300 round trip in the US. I am having trouble finding info on the airlines websites, so I'm contacting pet travel companies online. my question is... has anyone here done this, how much did it cost you, and do you have a company you'd recommend working with? thanks!

Taxe d'habitation

SureshJ — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:04:08 GMT

Hello all,

I was wondering whether someone could help me out a bit. I don't fully understand this taxe d'habitation. I get the money-grabbing concept of it, but not how it is calculated...

If it's based just on the apartment, fine and dandy, but people tell me that it is based on a lot of things.

Now, we have a HUGE taxe d'hab, which was calculated before I got here, and currently, we have 4 students living in this apartment (last year, the people we took the spots of were full time workers). So, can this impact the taxe?

Suggestions? Anyone? It's a lot of money to shell out (if the possibility to pay less exists, anyways).

Thanks!
-Suresh

Moving home in France

conky2 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:37:44 GMT

Does anyone have any experience of the way selling and buying your house in France works ? We live in England and have sold our house in the AUde, and are looking to move north to Allier.

DO these things ever co-incide as in UK or do you have to sell first and then buy once you are sure things are going through.

Any advice or where I can seek it much appreciated.

Getting a prescription in France?

river_boat — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:52:20 GMT

Hi,

I moved to Paris from the UK almost four months ago, and am working as an English teacher here (and paying social charges through my salary accordingly). I have yet to sort out applying for a carte vitale etc, as I am always working at the times the office is open. I need to take a day off at some point and go and sort it out, but I hear that the process of getting the card can be lengthy...

I'm looking for some advice about getting a prescription for the contraceptive pill. I used to take this in the past, but stopped a few years ago. Now, for various reasons, I'd like to start taking it again.

So, I have a few questions:

1. Can I get a prescription for the pill from a "normal" (ie non specialist) GP in Paris? I've got a list of English-speaking doctors here (necessary for me at this stage), and while some of them are listed as GPs, others are down as gynacologists and I don't know whether it's standard practice here to go to the latter for a prescription for the contraceptive pill...

2. Will I be able to make an appointment and get a prescription without yet having the Carte Vitale? Will I have to pay tons of money if I do it this way round? I do have my EHIC but I don't know what difference this makes in terms of costs/access to treatment.

3. Depending on what the answers to the above questions may be, I'm in half a mind to wait until Christmas when I go back to the UK for a few weeks, and get a prescription from my doctor there, who I am still registered with. But if I've already applied for my Carte Vitale by then, I don't know if this will somehow register in the UK so that I'm effectively kicked out of the NHS system and have to get all my treatment in France?

Any advice, particularly re: the first two questions would be much appreciated. I've tried to do online research around this, but it's a minefield out there...

Tough luck, the Irish

frogblogger — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:03:23 GMT

'They woz robbed'!

Diabolically blatant handball by 'Handy' Henry, the result a travesty... which is why I really don't like watching football (soccer) any more. Almost as bad as Maradonna's "main de Dieu" all those years ago.

Overpaid prima donnas who cheat, sums up the sport these days. I would almost prefer to watch American football! ;)

For your amusement

minesthechevy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:20:47 GMT

Jeremy Clarkson, who should be made PM-for-Life in my opinion, has had this weeks article in the Times pulled after whingeing from the limp-wristed lefties who 'run' what used to be a half-decent country to live in.

Anyway, it managed to escape out into Internet-land before being pulled, and I repost it here just for your amusement. The comments about Peter Mandleson? I'd tie him onto teh van myself....

<<<<

"Get me a rope before Mandelson wipes us all out"

Jeremy Clarkson
for the Sunday Times

I've given the matter a great deal of thought all week, and I'm afraid
I've decided that it's no good putting Peter Mandelson in a prison. I'm
afraid he will have to be tied to the front of a van and driven round the
country until he isn't alive any more.
He announced last week that middle-class children will simply not be
allowed into the country's top universities even if they have 4,000
A-levels, because all the places will be taken by Albanians and guillemots
and whatever other stupid bandwagon the conniving idiot has leapt

I hate Peter Mandelson. I hate his fondness for extremely pale blue jeans
and I hate that preposterous moustache he used to sport in the days when
he didn't bother trying to cover up his left-wing fanaticism. I hate the
way he quite literally lords it over us even though he's resigned in
disgrace twice, and now holds an important decision-making job for which
he was not elected. Mostly, though, I hate him because his one-man war on
the bright and the witty and the successful means that half my friends now
seem to be taking leave of their senses.

There's talk of emigration in the air. It's everywhere I go. Parties.
Work. In the supermarket. My daughter is working herself half to death to
get good grades at GSCE and can't see the point because she won't be going
to university, because she doesn't have a beak or flippers or a
qualification in washing windscreens at the lights. She wonders, often,
why we don't live in America.

Then you have the chaps and chapesses who can't stand the constant raids
on their wallets and their privacy. They can't understand why they are
taxed at 50% on their income and then taxed again for driving into the
nation's capital. They can't understand what happened to the hunt for the
weapons of mass destruction. They can't understand anything. They see the
Highway Wombles in those brand new 4x4s that they paid for, and they see
the M4 bus lane and they see the speed cameras and the community support
officers and they see the Albanians stealing their wheelbarrows and
nothing can be done because it's racist.

And they see Alistair Darling handing over �4,350 of their money to not
sort out the banking crisis that he doesn't understand because he's a
small-town solicitor, and they see the stupid war on drugs and the war on
drink and the war on smoking and the war on hunting and the war on fun and
the war on scientists and the obsession with the climate and the price of
train fares soaring past �1,000 and the Guardian power-brokers getting
uppity about one shot baboon and not uppity at all about all the dead
soldiers in Afghanistan, and how they got rid of Blair only to find the
lying twerp is now going to come back even more powerful than ever, and
they think, "I've had enough of this. I'm off."

It's a lovely idea, to get out of this stupid, Fairtrade, Brown-stained,
Mandelson-skewed, equal-opportunities, multicultural, carbon-neutral,
trendily left, regionally assembled, big-government, trilingual,
mosque-drenched, all-the-pigs-are-equal, property-is-theft hellhole and
set up shop somewhere else. But where?

You can't go to France because you need to complete 17 forms in triplicate
every time you want to build a greenhouse, and you can't go to Switzerland
because you will be reported to your neighbours by the police and
subsequently shot in the head if you don't sweep your lawn properly, and
you can't go to Italy because you'll soon tire of waking up in the morning
to find a horse's head in your bed because you forgot to give a man called
Don a bundle of used notes for "organising" a plumber.

You can't go to Australia because it's full of things that will eat you,
you can't go to New Zealand because they don't accept anyone who is more
than 40 and you can't go to Monte Carlo because they don't accept anyone
who has less than 40 mill. And you can't go to Spain because you're not
called Del and you weren't involved in the Walthamstow blag. And you can't
go to Germany ... because you just can't.

The Caribbean sounds tempting, but there is no work, which means that one
day, whether you like it or not, you'll end up like all the other expats,
with a nose like a burst beetroot, wondering if it's okay to have a small
sharpener at 10 in the morning. And, as I keep explaining to my daughter,
we can't go to America because if you catch a cold over there, the health
system is designed in such a way that you end up without a house. Or dead.

Canada's full of people pretending to be French, South Africa's too risky,
Russia's worse and everywhere else is too full of snow, too full of flies
or too full of people who want to cut your head off on the internet. So
you can dream all you like about upping sticks and moving to a country
that doesn't help itself to half of everything you earn and then spend the
money it gets on bus lanes and advertisements about the dangers of salt.
But wherever you go you'll wind up an alcoholic or dead or bored or in a
cellar, in an orange jumpsuit, gently wetting yourself on the web. All of
these things are worse than being persecuted for eating a sandwich at the
wheel.

I see no reason to be miserable. Yes, Britain now is worse than it's been
for decades, but the lunatics who've made it so ghastly are on their way
out. Soon, they will be back in Hackney with their South African
nuclear-free peace polenta. And instead the show will be run by a bloke
whose dad has a wallpaper shop and possibly, terrifyingly, a twerp in
Belgium whose fruitless game of hunt-the-WMD has netted him �15m on the
lecture circuit.

So actually I do see a reason to be miserable. Which is why I think it's a
good idea to tie Peter Mandelson to a van. Such an act would be cruel and
barbaric and inhuman. But it would at least cheer everyone up a bit in the
meantime.

>>>>>>>>>>

Child benefit

Lizy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:31:04 GMT

Hi All,

Can anyone tell me as an EU citizen living in france are we entitled to child benefits when having children,like in ireland and the UK?. I cant seem to find anything on english websites...am getting there with the french websites but still to learn...If so what is the monthly benefit now?

thanks alot.

Possibly expat in Paris - Tax and residency issues

NYandParis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:53:40 GMT

Hi everybody!

I just found out that my Company could send me to the Paris branch for some 4-6-8 months (you know how these things go, you know the start date and never the end date).
Of course my wife and I are excited but I'd like to hear from you about a few issues:

- I'll probably stay on the US payroll so I'll just be paying US Federal Taxes (and not even NY local taxes since we won't be physically present there). Would I have any liability in France even though my income originates in the US?

- Residency: I just became a US citizen last week and I hold Italian citizenship as well. I understand it won't be a problem for me. Is there anything I should do once in France?
My wife is a US citizen only for now. She applied for Italian citizenship but most likely that won't be granted till next summer, at least.
What should she do. Does she need to apply for a visa or she can obtain one there as spouse of a EU citizen? We would like to keep a low-profile on this because I do not want to have French Govt coming after me for any tax liability.

Lastly, any good suggestion for a neighborhood to live in Paris? My wife and I are a young couple and love the art scene as well as the restaurant scene.

Thanks everybody!