Bonjour; No bank has requested that from us in 20 years, even when we took our a 'black friday' (no collateral) loan at Cr-Agr. There is no legal requirement that you give the bank your avis d'impôt. I would refuse, and if necessary select another bank. If you wish to help the readers of this forum, please post the name of the bank that made this request.

 

Don't forget that the banks in France were among the last businesses to be "privatized" after years of being considered nationalized businesses. When you first open an account, they still can (and usually do) ask for information about your "financial resources" - primarily to get an idea of how much money you'll be passing through your bank account each month. (And this is the information they use to decide if you are creditworthy when it comes to loans and other sorts of transactions.)

The avis d'imposition is frequently used here to verify your income - especially that figure on your avis labeled "revenu de reference" - which is based on all your "worldwide income" including any foreign sourced income subject to credits or other tax treaty treatment. You will find that the banks here take a big interest in the sources of your cash deposits - as, for instance, if you empty out a foreign account to put in your French account over here. If you say that you are emptying out a foreign account, they need to know whether or not the taxes have already been paid on that money, because they need to know that you're not trying to "launder" your funds.

Send them your most recent avis d'impots so they can do their jobs and confirm the tax status of your funds. The bank can be very helpful if you should, for example, try to set up a savings or investment account here, and the financial institution insists on confirming the tax status of the funds you're transferring from your bank.

 

If you are concerned about the legitimacy of the request, could you not inquire to your bank via your secure message system when you've signed into your account. They can then confirm they did, in fact, make the request and the reason why. I, personally, would not send it until I had done that. Unless, of course, your bank has a branch within driving distance, then I'd go there and ask in person.

 

call your counselor directly and ask why this is needed, it could be to establish your fiscal residency which is normal but should have been done while opening the account.

 

Many thanks for the thoughts on this. It's Banque Populaire. We've traded with them since 2019 and they've been generally helpful.

This shouldn't be a matter of fiscal residency, since we established that long ago. However, we wouldn't be the first foreigners in France asked for documents that we'd already supplied.

We have a RDV with the conseiller. That'll give us a chance to show her the email to make sure it's not an arnaque, and for her to explain why she wants or needs this info - assuming that she really does.

 

Asking for these sorts of docs is a growing part of the new AML legislation. Even those of us who have never been asked will be asked when the bank does its periodic review.



Take the doc along to your rendezvous. The conseiller just has to tick a box to say they've seen it (they might take a copy), so if you have it with you, save yourself a trip.



Kind regards





Ian

 

I have been asked for this before by Bq. Pop. along with proof of my work pension. I just took a copy of each and shoved it through the letter box of my branch.

No need to be paranoid.