Here are just a few photos of outdoor plants in our yard and garden in June 2012. I'm still too busy to blog but I'm not yet ready to give details about what's distracting me. It has to do with a new tax filing requirement that the French government has begun requiring. Every person or entity that owns a house or apartment has to file a déclaration d'occupation listing the adult occupants of that house or apartment. The declaration has to be done on line; No declarations on paper are accepted. You are supposed to go onto the French tax administration web site and set up an account. I can't get it to work in my case. I wonder if any of you who are reading this who own property in France know about this new requirement and have dealt with it.
No, I just heard from you. I’l have to inquire somewhere as if I didn’t have enough problems like that. I’ll keep you posted.
ReplyDeleteAt Frenchentree.com you’ll get all the information English speakers will need concerning this new (old?) tax which, as far as I understand it, will replace the old taxe d’habitation. The suppression of the old habitation tax was too good to be true. Plus ça change…
DeleteIt seems that new requirement began in March.
Without you, Ken, I had no way to know about it. Thank you.
The new document that you need to file now and any time in the future when there's a change of occupancy is not a tax but a required declaration. If you report that you own a property that is vacant or rented, the tax d'habitation will need to be paid. I wonder if the person occupying the logement as a renter has to pay it. If the logement is vacant, it seems like the owner has to pay. And yes, the taxe d'habitation was abolished for people who own just one logement and who occupy it as their résidence principale. For foreigners who are not French residents for tax purposes and who own a logement in France, I don't think that logement could be considered a résidence principale. While we no longer pay the taxe d'habitation for our house, our taxe foncière (property tax) has approximately doubled over the past 20 years. My problem with the new obligation déclarative is that we don't own our house. We own the personne morale (entity) who owns the house. It's complicated.
DeleteCHM, did you receive the copy of the letter that I e-mailed you yesterday? I'm not sure what e-mail address you are using these days.
DeleteThese days, I only use my gmail address. No wanadoo and no earthlink. I just forwarded your e-mail from my old tablet to the newer one. Thank you.
DeleteI hope the “percepteur” will provide me with the information I need. As I said, I’ll keep you posted ; in the meantime, I keep my fingers crossed.
Hi, Ken. You may have already found all you needed from Frenchentree thanks to chm. I don't think this is for a new tax per se, but the government wants people to declare who is occupying all the owned residential properties. Second homes still have to pay taxe d'habitation. They probably also want to have information on vacant residences. Once you log in with your fiscal tax number at impots.gouv.fr and go to "biens immobiliers," it's fairly simple to answer the queries.
ReplyDeleteIt's not so simple for us because our house is owned by a Société Civile Immobilière (SCI) that we created 20 years ago. We own the SCI and the SCI owns the house. Nothing shows up for us on biens immobiliers page on the French taxes web site.
DeleteAh, that is a mystery. Do you mean that no "biens immobiliers" marker shows up on the impots page for your SCI? The SCI likely has its own tax identifying number different from your personal tax page number. If your property is not listed for the SCI, you may have to send them a message about the problem. Don't worry about the June 30, 2023 deadline though. I think I read somewhere that they were not going to impose any fines for non-reporting before the end of the year at least.
ReplyDeleteI have started the process of creating an Espace Professionel on impots.gouv.fr. It requires that you receive an e-mail that includes a link you have to click on to begin the activation of your Espace Pro. That took two or three days. Then you have to wait about two weeks to get a letter sent via la Poste that includes an activation code that you use to complete the activation process. I'm hoping the letter will come sooner rather than later. And then, if I'm reading everything right, then we have 60 days to finish getting the account set up. Thanks for mentioning the June 30 deadline issue. I figured they would be lenient, and I read something that said if you sent a "secure message" to the people at impots.gouv.fr, that will be seen as a sign that you are trying your best to comply with the new requirements. I wouldn't be too worried about the 150€ fine, but I don't want to have to pay a taxe d'habitation next year on top of the already high taxe foncière. Thanks again for all the information you have sent.
DeleteGot this from a Boursorama website dated May 12, 2023. Might be helpful:
ReplyDelete"Pour les biens via une SCI, la démarche diffère des biens classiques. Pour déclarer ce bien immobilier, il faut se connecter à son espace professionnel ou, à défaut, en créer un. Pour cela, il faudra indiquer son numéro Siren puis préciser l’état d’occupation du bien via l’onglet « Gérer mon bien immobilier ». La Direction générale des finances publiques (DGFiP) indique à nos confrères par ailleurs que « la déclaration déposée par un associé au nom de la SCI suffit » ."
Thanks again. Walt and I went the SCI route because we weren't married (couldn't be) and we were worried about what might happen if one of us died. Would there be exorbitant inheritance taxes? Now we are married, and we may just dissolve the SCI next year.
DeleteSorry to hear that you have this new headache. I always think about what this must be like for people whose level of French is not what yours is... yikes!
ReplyDeleteI think we have the situation under control, even though the French tax people are not answering our e-mails, which we send via a secure server that they make available for situations like these.
DeleteI just sent an email to the percepteur du 15e asking for their help. Unable to know or remember what my numéro fiscal thirteen digits is. Without it, I can’t have a personal space and thus no access to the declaration.
ReplyDeleteWhen I sold my house, its content was dispersed, except for a few easy to find objects. No documents!
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
They say there's a 150 euro fine for not filing the declaration on time, but like Walt and me, you can claim extenuating circumstances and have shown proof of good faith by writing to the tax authorities in Paris. As Kiwi wrote, there probably won't be any fines levied until next year.
ReplyDeleteAs legal residents in France but non-citizens, Walt and I try to be very careful to comply with all the rules.
ReplyDelete