DavidS wrote: ↑Wed May 29, 2019 12:03 pm
A question for daveuprite or any other permanent expat.
This has no judgemental implications but a genuine quest for information.
My understanding is that you have to pay tax to France but then are allowed to not get a double hit from the UK.
What contributions do you have to make to the UK when living abroad permanently other than interest on savings (if you are allowed to use a UK bank anyway). I guess you rightly get proportional pension rights for the number of years when working here.
It's a bit complicated and depends on your circumstances and sources of income. I can only safely talk about our particular situation.
We rent out a flat in London and one in Leeds. The income goes into our UK bank account and we transfer it as and when we need it into our French bank account, preferably when the exchange rate is favourable. We have lost about 20% on this since the 2016 referendum £/Euro exchange rate collapse.
Because we have this UK income source we have to complete an HMRC self-declaration form every year.
But because we are resident in France all our 'worldly wealth' is taxed in France, and the two countries signed a double taxation agreement some years ago.
Of course we also complete an annual french tax declaration too, and we declare what we earn from the UK flats, plus interest on bank accounts (in both countries) and what I earn from my small business here in France. The business gets us into the health system so that we can use Carte Vitale health cards and get full cover with a small insurance top-up.
We are only taxed once, by the french authorities. There's a minimum income threshold here, just like the UK, and you only pay tax over that level, at an increasing rate the more you earn over further thresholds, and depending on how many people/children are in your household.
We're both too young to claim our pensions yet, which were accrued in the UK, but when we reach 60 they'll be paid into the UK account and we'll draw it down in the same way. A crash-out no deal brexit threatens this system and we're not sure quite how money transfers would work.
Other people's circumstances are much more complicated than ours, but I think the double taxation agreement still applies to everyone. Luckily this is a bilateral agreement not an EU one, so hopefully isn't affected by brexit.