I've moved your post into a thread of its own as I think it's a question that is probably of interest to many of our members.

State income taxes: in France it would be Depts maybe? Which goes to pay for local gov’t expenses (about .25% of annual net income)

There aren't direct taxes as such at the departemental or local level, except for the property taxes noted below. There are some "local" taxes for businesses, though.

Personal property taxes which goes to local gov’t expenses, school, police and fire services ($2000-$5000 a yr for an average 3bd/2 home).

What you do have are the two main property taxes, the taxe foncière and the taxe d'habitation. The taxe foncière is roughly equivalent to the property tax in the US, in that it's levied against the owner of a residential property. The taxe d'habitation is then levied against the person living in a residential property on January 1st of the year. If you own your own home, you pay both taxes.

Both taxes are based on the calculated rental value of the property - which is based on the size of the property (in square meters), adjusted for certain "upgrades" and conveniences by the addition of a set number of additional square meters. The rate applied to the rental value varies by town.

Then we have a sales tax which goes to pay for?? (5 to 8% of total purchase).

For sales tax, substitute VAT (or TVA, as it's known in France) - at 19.6% for most things, or 5.5% for reduced rate items (soon to be raised to 7%). Difference is, however, that VAT is included in the price you're quoted, not added onto the quoted price as is the custom in the US.

Some states have an automobile luxury tax. ($50-500 annual)

The annual auto tax was done away with a few years back. But taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel bring the cost of fuel for your car to something like $8 a gallon. Highway tolls are considerably higher than in the US if you use the toll roads.

There is also a television tax (which is collected as part of your taxe d'habitation) and runs about 120€ a year. You can avoid it only if you own no television at all.
Cheers,
Bev

 

Bev, as usual you are an amazing wealth of knowledge!
Thank you for the response very good information to know.

 

Thanks for this! Do people living in a rented apartment pay taxe d'habitation? If so, how much are we talking for a 30-50 square meter apartment in Paris, ballpark-figure?

 

Yup. The calculation of the tax is tricky, since it's only indirectly related to the actual measured size of your apartment.

The official explanation is here: La taxe d'habitation - Paris.fr (in French) from the Paris city website.

Figure on paying at least a couple hundred euros for taxe d'hab - up to nearly a thousand if your place is fitted out nicely with "amenities" (like toilets, tubs, showers, etc.) that add square meters to the calculation. There are also some adjustments made for your personal circumstance - income, number of "parts" (i.e. family size), etc.
Cheers,
Bev

 

The taxe d'habitation is a once a year assessment. The bill arrives in October, based on who was living in a place on January 1st of the year. (That's another thing about French taxes - the delay between the date they calculate the taxes and when they send out the assessment notices.)

Yeah, the list of "amenities" that adds square meters to the rental value calculation is pretty interesting. Includes stuff like central heat, air conditioning, a pool (for houses, obviously) and most form of "indoor plumbing."
Cheers,
Bev