As I mentioned in my last post about becoming an auto-entrepreneur, the first thing that happens is you get flooded with mail, most of which I had no idea what to do with, so I put it off since I was busy with Christmas and New Years and going back to work and travelling to York and all the rest of it. Not to mention actually starting the work I created the business to do! But I vowed to tackle it this weekend, so here are some more handy hints.
One of the more confusing pieces of mail I got was to do with the AGIRC and ARRCO pension schemes. I actually got more or less the same form sent to me by two companies, Humanis and Reunica, although I see from looking online you might get them from different places, depending on where you are in France. One of my biggest stumbling blocks looking at this form was that is says "Choice of institutions" and there are two (AGIRC and ARRCO) but no boxes to tick or clear instructions to circle or cross out one of the choices, so I didn't know what to do with the form. I found a very helpful article online about this that explains these organisations aren't actually for YOUR pension - you selected a complementary provider at the time of creating your enterprise. They are for your future employees - but you still have to fill out the form whether you have employees or not. The reason there are two of them, is that "salariés" get one organisation, and "cadres" get another. If you don't have employees of any type, don't worry, you don't have to pay anything. That article I linked to does a pretty good job of explaining the basics on how to complete the form.
This form has to be completed within 3 months of creating your enterprise - I know this because I've already got a nagging letter in the post for not doing it. I assume I only have to send the form back to one of the (private) companies that has contacted me. Since I'm not planning on having any employees, I just picked the one with the easier form.
The second thing I got a lot of (apart from stuff from supermarkets and phone companies wanting my business) was offers of mutuelles - complementary health insurance. However, all of them seemed to be aimed at my imaginary employees, rather than myself, so I just chucked all that. Once I figured out what various stuff was there was actually a lot, including duplicates of the form I just mentioned, I could just throw away. And then there was also a lot of stuff like the official certificates of creating my business and registering it with different agencies that I just needed to file.
After all of that, the only thing left that really needed dealing with was the form to declare your income (having chosen the "régime micro-social simplifié" when you created the enterprise). The form actually looks pretty straightforward, and it comes with an explanatory page, but it also says you can do it online, which seems easier to me, so I went on www.lautoentrepreneur.fr to sign up for this. In typical fashion, you sign up and then you have to print out a form and send it in. I thought I would be able to save the PDF document it says it will create and print it out at work, but there is no option to save it. So when I logged back in at work, I couldn't find the form again at first, but eventually I found it by going to 'Le compte de votre établissement -> Gérer les inscriptions' then in the new menu 'Vos coordonnées bancaires pour télérégler vos cotisations d'auto-entrepreneur' then next to your bank details it has 'Afficher le formulaire d'adhésion'. The window with the form wouldn't open in Firefox, but it is fine in Chrome.
Then, presumably once you mail this form in to them, they activate your registration on the site so you can pay your taxes online. I'm mostly telling you this so that no-one thinks they can wait till the last minute to pay online. You have to declare every trimester, whether you make money or not. I had the dates on a piece of paper somewhere but I must have filed it, so I can only say the first trimester ends on the 30/04/12. Presumably the next is 4 months after that, then 4 months after that.
Oh hey - most importantly - I got paid! I am probably about halfway through doing the actual work. I'm a bit worried about how it will go because it depends on people emailing me back. It's not my problem if they don't, but if we do a second round of emails I can see me getting up to my hour limit (I think it worked out at only 19 hours or something) really quickly because it really takes quite a lot of time, even though it's a boring and simple task. Anyway, as I said I would, I've put the money in my savings, so I'm not tempted to fritter it away before the taxman's been paid and I've even finished the work!
Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tax. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Becoming an auto-entrepreneur
There has been talk for months and months now about my doing some freelance work for a prestigious Parisian institution which shall remain nameless, which I've held back on blogging about since it dragged on and on with nothing happening for so long. However, it looks like thunderbirds are go, so I thought it might be helpful to some of my readers to talk about the process of becoming self-employed - an 'auto-entrepreneur' in French. Please note that this is my own personal experience, so while I've tried to put down the process to the best of my ability, you should probably seek further advice if you're thinking of taking the plunge yourself. Also, I have an EU passport, so I have no idea what hurdles you need to jump through if you are here on an existing visa or you want to move to France to set up a business.
I was initially quite reluctant to go ahead with this, due to a number of concerns - 1) I wasn't sure whether it was okay for me to take work on the side while remaining an employee, 2) I wasn't sure what it would do to my tax bill, and 3) I wasn't looking forward to jumping through administrative hoops that I would regard as a headache in my own country, let alone in a foreign language and in France, kingdom of bureaucracy.
To take those points in order: 1) legally, you are allowed to be an auto-entrepreneur and salarie, with the usual caveats about advising your employer and not entering into direct competition with them. I told my boss when this was first raised with me, and I never actually got a response to my email, so hopefully it's okay! I assume so, I'm not doing the same work or stealing clients (we don't have clients for starters) or anything like that.
2) The tax rate for people providing services is 21.3% of your gross revenue, and you can earn up to 32,600 euros per annum as an auto-entrepreneur. This covers all social security payments as well. You can choose to pay this online monthly or once a trimester. Everyone seems to say that this is absolutely ALL you have to pay as an auto-entrepreneur and you pay nothing if you don't make any money. *However* I ran a couple of simulations on the tax calculator at impots.gouv.fr and adding in the auto-entrepreneur money seemed to add a couple of hundred euros on to my overall tax bill (on top of the 21.3% which is paid separately), which isn't great news since I'm only getting 1000 euros for this job. After thinking about it, I decided to go forward with the job on the understanding that I might not really make much money out of it at all, basically because it will look good for me to have work for nameless Parisian institution on my CV, it will look good to have professional translation work on my CV, and you never know if something will come of it in terms of making professional contacts and potentially opening up new career options. When I get the chance, I'd like to go and talk to someone official and clear all this up, but in the meantime I'm planning on putting the money straight into my savings and holding on to it until tax time. Best case scenario, I'm doing something wrong on that calculator and it is only 21.3% and that's the end of the story, but if not, I'm prepared for that.
3) The most important thing you need to do is register online to create your enterprise and get the all-important SIREN/SIRET number, equivalent to your social security number as an individual. It's actually pretty quick and easy. I won't go through every step, but just some of the things I thought were important to highlight.
You will need (ideally) to have an electronic copy of your ID (e.g. passport scan). The first thing to do is say what the nature of your work will be - I ummed and ahhed a bit about this, since the work I will actually be doing, at least for this first job, is a bit difficult to define, but I opted for 'translator' as the simplest option. I later read somewhere (I think on a form I got sent in the mail) that this information was for statistical purposes only, so don't worry too much. This is classed as an 'activite liberale', which I think does make a difference to your tax rate.
Unfortunately, this next bit got cut off on my print-out of my declaration, but I'm pretty sure where it asks about the regime micro fiscal (BIC or special BNC) I ticked yes. Whichever option I ticked, it is meant to mean that you can pay all your taxes and charges when you do your monthly or trimestrial declaration, so there *should* be nothing left over to surprise you at the end of the tax year.
I think those are the main things I needed help with when filling out the declaration, the rest should be more or less straightforward if you speak French. You also have to pick a new organisme d'assurance maladie, although you still keep the old one as a salarie. I really don't know how the relationship between the two works - it still confuses me that everyone isn't just on the same system to begin with. It says there is no difference to your charges etc. depending on which organisme you choose so I just googled and picked one with an office in Tours, since I prefer dealing with people face-to-face if possible.
After I submitted my form, it only took a week or two for me to receive the notification that they had created my enterprise! Since then, mail has been rolling in about different aspects of being an auto-entrepreneur (plus I am now on the mailing list of every telecommunications company etc. in France), which I haven't really had time to look at. And by "I haven't had time" I mean "I've been too lazy to". It is quite funny getting stuff in the post directed to 'le dirigeant' etc.
Once things were moving forward with the SIREN/SIRET numbers, I had to provide a bill for my services. I followed a model on this website, with some obvious adjustments due to the nature of the work. Note the line telling you that you cannot charge TVA as an auto-entrepreneur! Because I was billing for a mixture of translation and other services, I divided it into a rate per word for the translation and a rate per hour for the rest.
I will put what I'm charging on here since I think it can be hard, especially as expats, to get this sort of information. For this job, I charged 20 centimes per word for translation, and 36 euro per hour gross for my other work (basically liaison work with "clients" and updating the website - I don't want to get too specific on what/who I'm working for on the interwebs). I had actually drawn up a bill at 10 centimes and 20 euro, which I showed to a colleague who basically told me to hike my prices. I have seen rates for translation quoted online at around 7-15 centimes per word, so I initially went for 10 since I'm not a qualified translator or anything. It was good for me to get some advice on this as I tend to be a bit timid and to under-value myself, so sometimes it is good to get someone else to come in and tell you that you're pitching too low.
The translation work I am doing is in a quite specialised domain and intended for an academic audience, so arguably it should be charged at a higher rate. I think so far on average my rate for translation is working out at around about 50 euros an hour, although obviously that's subject to variation based on the complexity of the text to be translated. I had some further discussion with colleagues who have hired translators for similar work in the past, and this seems roughly commensurate with what they have been willing to pay. I don't know how competitive one would be at this rate out in the market, but all things considered, I think it's a fair rate. However, I submitted my facture right before Christmas, so I actually haven't got any word back on that yet!
If anyone is interested, I'll try to keep you updated on any developments as I get to grips with things myself (it's still all a bit new and scary to be honest) and any feedback on any aspect of the process, working for yourself, making contacts, translating, etc. etc. is welcome!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
123€ poorer, any wiser?
All the ins and outs of the situation are too complicated to bore you with (anyone wanting to follow the flatmate from hell saga can look here, here, here, here, here and here - for starters...), but to be (kinda) brief (this may not seem like the simplified version, but trust me), I saw the agent last night, who gave me a copy of the lease, as requested by the taxman. She also let me know that she has no idea where G is these days; that G had been charging me more than half the rent when I was living with her - not really surprised at this stage, but unsure why that never came out before; and that G's dad had said she has always been a liar. True dat. Plus more stuff about how even when the agent had turned up to the apartment to bust her, she was spouting lies about how I (and she pretended I was 'Géraldine' and she was my flatmate) worked nights and wouldn't be back and she should come back during the day - whereas she knew I was right behind her, since we'd been at a mutual friend's place, but she was obviously hoping that she could get rid of the agent and I'd never find out.
Anyway, armed with the lease, I went to the tax office this morning (the whole thing took about 2 hours total). Unfortunately, didn't get to see the guy I saw last time, who got the whole sob story and told me how to sort it out. Instead, I got a woman who seemed much less sympathetic. To be fair, I didn't lay all the cards on the table at first, since I was thinking that, as I had been told I wasn't legally responsible, it didn't really matter what G had done to me. But she started off by saying I could have forged the agent's signature on the lease. I mean, first off, the agent had crossed out the girl who had lived with G THREE flatmates before me (and was never taken off the lease), and just written in that she left in 2008 but G was still there until the end of July this year. Why, if I were the legal-document-forging and lying-to-the-tax-department type, would I have bothered trying to absolve this other girl of responsibility? Wouldn't it have been easier just to leave things as they were?
After a bit of back and forth, thankfully she decided to believe me that I hadn't turned my hand to fraud to get out of a 450€ bill. Then she said she could cancel me off the tax (and thus make G solely responsible for it) but for some reason she couldn't take the TV licence fee out of my name. Why couldn't she? She just couldn't. Of course. Sigh. I pointed out that this was pretty unfair, since it was G's TV (technically - and I didn't tell her this - I did have a TV in my room too, but it belonged to G and I watched it max once a fortnight when the F1 was on, plus it's one fee per residence, not per TV, so didn't make a difference anyway) and she turned all snippy and said that normally everyone had to pay the taxe d'habitation, and I had been living there, so I shouldn't be complaining. Which was infuriating. At this stage, I had mentioned that G had stolen from me and not paid the rent (since she had initially suggested that I just sort out paying the tax between ourselves), so don't bloody talk to me about moral obligations! However, there was no budging her on this standpoint, so I just paid the 123€. At the end of the day, it's less than half the amount, which is what I was expecting to have to pay, and it's done with.
The only thing is, I'm left wondering if the situation is truly resolved now. She said (again, I don't know why) that G would now receive the bill for this tax in January or February. Somehow, I'm not picturing her leaping off to the tax office to fulfil her obligations (obligations? Obligations are for suckers). The agent said that if she doesn't pay, they will end up chasing the landlord for the money. In that case, she mentioned using a rent cheque I gave the agent for June and July (which she hasn't yet cashed because of accountancy issues chasing up the money from G's family - again, won't go into the details) to pay the tax. Sure, I was in the apartment in June and July, so I'm not contesting that I owe rent for those months, but it seems unfair to have that hanging over my head for who-knows-how-long. And the thought that she might just merrily not pay something AGAIN and not really have to deal with any of the consequences AGAIN really, really annoys me. And I feel that that's like, best case scenario - I just have visions of her somehow harrassing me.
This whole thing has been such a drain for the past six months. Even today, I was feeling physically sick to my stomach in the tax place. I just wish I knew it was over.
Anyway, armed with the lease, I went to the tax office this morning (the whole thing took about 2 hours total). Unfortunately, didn't get to see the guy I saw last time, who got the whole sob story and told me how to sort it out. Instead, I got a woman who seemed much less sympathetic. To be fair, I didn't lay all the cards on the table at first, since I was thinking that, as I had been told I wasn't legally responsible, it didn't really matter what G had done to me. But she started off by saying I could have forged the agent's signature on the lease. I mean, first off, the agent had crossed out the girl who had lived with G THREE flatmates before me (and was never taken off the lease), and just written in that she left in 2008 but G was still there until the end of July this year. Why, if I were the legal-document-forging and lying-to-the-tax-department type, would I have bothered trying to absolve this other girl of responsibility? Wouldn't it have been easier just to leave things as they were?
After a bit of back and forth, thankfully she decided to believe me that I hadn't turned my hand to fraud to get out of a 450€ bill. Then she said she could cancel me off the tax (and thus make G solely responsible for it) but for some reason she couldn't take the TV licence fee out of my name. Why couldn't she? She just couldn't. Of course. Sigh. I pointed out that this was pretty unfair, since it was G's TV (technically - and I didn't tell her this - I did have a TV in my room too, but it belonged to G and I watched it max once a fortnight when the F1 was on, plus it's one fee per residence, not per TV, so didn't make a difference anyway) and she turned all snippy and said that normally everyone had to pay the taxe d'habitation, and I had been living there, so I shouldn't be complaining. Which was infuriating. At this stage, I had mentioned that G had stolen from me and not paid the rent (since she had initially suggested that I just sort out paying the tax between ourselves), so don't bloody talk to me about moral obligations! However, there was no budging her on this standpoint, so I just paid the 123€. At the end of the day, it's less than half the amount, which is what I was expecting to have to pay, and it's done with.
The only thing is, I'm left wondering if the situation is truly resolved now. She said (again, I don't know why) that G would now receive the bill for this tax in January or February. Somehow, I'm not picturing her leaping off to the tax office to fulfil her obligations (obligations? Obligations are for suckers). The agent said that if she doesn't pay, they will end up chasing the landlord for the money. In that case, she mentioned using a rent cheque I gave the agent for June and July (which she hasn't yet cashed because of accountancy issues chasing up the money from G's family - again, won't go into the details) to pay the tax. Sure, I was in the apartment in June and July, so I'm not contesting that I owe rent for those months, but it seems unfair to have that hanging over my head for who-knows-how-long. And the thought that she might just merrily not pay something AGAIN and not really have to deal with any of the consequences AGAIN really, really annoys me. And I feel that that's like, best case scenario - I just have visions of her somehow harrassing me.
This whole thing has been such a drain for the past six months. Even today, I was feeling physically sick to my stomach in the tax place. I just wish I knew it was over.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
In which nothing has changed
I decided not to go into work today (kind of annoyed about spending another day of holiday, even though I have so many, but oh well) because I was still getting over the tail-end of being sick, I had the tax stuff to sort out and basically I didn't want to. I got woken up around 7.30 by my neighbour leaving his apartment (I would love to know what he does - he often leaves before I'm up in the morning, and he always gets in super late, like 11.30 at night. I have probably blown my chance for neighbourly relations though, by basically running into my apartment and slamming the door the one time our paths crossed in the corridor. It's not my fault, though - studies have shown that 9 out of 10 girls can't distinguish his footsteps on the creaky wooden stairs from those of an angry rapist) and - ding! - that was it, I was awake and worrying about the taxe d'habitation and all it represents (phoning people in French, notably).
I had called the agent on her cellphone a couple of times yesterday, left a message, and also called the agency where I thought she worked, only to be told (confusingly) that she doesn't work there "and she's not in today anyway". Um, okay then. I didn't hear back, so I gave it till 10 this morning and called her again (twice), the second time I got through, she recognised me straight away (for once, the accent came in handy, not like yesterday at the tax place where I said, and SPELLED, my flatmate's name like 10 times and the guy kept on going "Burton? She is English like you?" until I finally got through to him. Damn Rs) but asked if she could call me back in about half an hour.
No problem! Yay! I leant back, congratulated myself on being brave and persistent with the phonecalls and waited for her to call me back and for me to get everything all ship-shape by the end of the day. I don't know why I expected it to be easy. In an universe where someone can lie to and steal from a supposed friend and get away without paying rent for a year without any serious consequences (yes, she technically has to pay the money back to her family, but c'mon...) (and forgetting the whole 'spending years sleeping with a guy who has a partner and kid at home' bit - which, of course, is more his fault, but it's not super classy on her part you must say) and then karma or whatever you call it sticks me with 100% of the tax bill that even the tax office says she should be legally responsible for (leaving any moral questions aside), of course it's not going to be easy. Why would I get a break? And yes, I know I'm *dwelling* but I can't not while this is still not resolved.
So anyway, all that to say that I just waited and waited for her to call back and the call never came. I leapt on the phone once and it turned out to be some crappy autodialling thing which called me 6 times, and there's not even any message or anyone on the line! I looked up the number online (092583697 for any of you in France) and there are pages and pages of people complaining about getting constantly called by this thing. Apparently something to do with Free and Alice selling your number to advertisers or something - and sure enough, in the evening I got a call from an unlisted number and it was Canal Plus telling me that I had been specially selected for a TV upgrade offer. I managed to cut her off by telling her I don't have a TV (you may remember, I - almost - literally threw the TV back in G's face in the moving out process) so mayyyybe they'll give calling me a rest. I guess if you pick up the phone to the stupid machine, you get "selected" for a real person to call you at night.
Anyway, I'm rambling. The obvious question you'll ask is why I didn't call the woman back again. I thought about it, but first I thought I should give it more time, since I'd already called like 4 times (one message, one time actually getting through, oh and the mysterious place where she doesn't work but kind of does as well) and I didn't want to be harassing someone I essentially needed a favour from. And then as the day went on, I just got really down. I'm still down, if you can't tell from my perky post thus far. It's just difficult to have the energy to deal with it. It's hard to feel stupid and unfairly treated and put upon and lost at sea all alone in a foreign country. Plus I'm still kind of sick and I'm just so tired. It's just so hard. And I don't know how I'm going to get up and go to work tomorrow, I just want to lie in bed all the time forever.
Oh yeah, and now I'm officially past due for the tax that I never got official notification of and have no idea what the consequences of that may be (I'm hoping none for me and lots for G, who presumably already knows she's off the hook and is just somewhere cackling with glee about sticking me with it, but like I say, with my luck...)
I had called the agent on her cellphone a couple of times yesterday, left a message, and also called the agency where I thought she worked, only to be told (confusingly) that she doesn't work there "and she's not in today anyway". Um, okay then. I didn't hear back, so I gave it till 10 this morning and called her again (twice), the second time I got through, she recognised me straight away (for once, the accent came in handy, not like yesterday at the tax place where I said, and SPELLED, my flatmate's name like 10 times and the guy kept on going "Burton? She is English like you?" until I finally got through to him. Damn Rs) but asked if she could call me back in about half an hour.
No problem! Yay! I leant back, congratulated myself on being brave and persistent with the phonecalls and waited for her to call me back and for me to get everything all ship-shape by the end of the day. I don't know why I expected it to be easy. In an universe where someone can lie to and steal from a supposed friend and get away without paying rent for a year without any serious consequences (yes, she technically has to pay the money back to her family, but c'mon...) (and forgetting the whole 'spending years sleeping with a guy who has a partner and kid at home' bit - which, of course, is more his fault, but it's not super classy on her part you must say) and then karma or whatever you call it sticks me with 100% of the tax bill that even the tax office says she should be legally responsible for (leaving any moral questions aside), of course it's not going to be easy. Why would I get a break? And yes, I know I'm *dwelling* but I can't not while this is still not resolved.
So anyway, all that to say that I just waited and waited for her to call back and the call never came. I leapt on the phone once and it turned out to be some crappy autodialling thing which called me 6 times, and there's not even any message or anyone on the line! I looked up the number online (092583697 for any of you in France) and there are pages and pages of people complaining about getting constantly called by this thing. Apparently something to do with Free and Alice selling your number to advertisers or something - and sure enough, in the evening I got a call from an unlisted number and it was Canal Plus telling me that I had been specially selected for a TV upgrade offer. I managed to cut her off by telling her I don't have a TV (you may remember, I - almost - literally threw the TV back in G's face in the moving out process) so mayyyybe they'll give calling me a rest. I guess if you pick up the phone to the stupid machine, you get "selected" for a real person to call you at night.
Anyway, I'm rambling. The obvious question you'll ask is why I didn't call the woman back again. I thought about it, but first I thought I should give it more time, since I'd already called like 4 times (one message, one time actually getting through, oh and the mysterious place where she doesn't work but kind of does as well) and I didn't want to be harassing someone I essentially needed a favour from. And then as the day went on, I just got really down. I'm still down, if you can't tell from my perky post thus far. It's just difficult to have the energy to deal with it. It's hard to feel stupid and unfairly treated and put upon and lost at sea all alone in a foreign country. Plus I'm still kind of sick and I'm just so tired. It's just so hard. And I don't know how I'm going to get up and go to work tomorrow, I just want to lie in bed all the time forever.
Oh yeah, and now I'm officially past due for the tax that I never got official notification of and have no idea what the consequences of that may be (I'm hoping none for me and lots for G, who presumably already knows she's off the hook and is just somewhere cackling with glee about sticking me with it, but like I say, with my luck...)
Monday, November 14, 2011
Flatmate saga - it's not over yet
Warning: Long post about my ongoing flatmate nightmare ahead!
I've just come back from the tax office, since that seemed like a completely fun way to spend my day off. Actually, I first went by in the morning, only for there to be a huge queue in front of me. Since there wasn't that much time left before they closed for lunch, I thought I would be all clever and turn up before they reopened their doors after the break.
Usually, if I need to go to this part of town, I make a detour past the best damn briocherie in Tours. I was kind of embarrassed this morning, cos the lady knew my order without me having to say. Maybe I've been there a couple of extra times lately, with the train trips to Chenonceaux and Poitiers (it's right next to the station), but I swear, normally it's only like once a month max that I end up nearby! Or maybe she just looks at me and thinks "definitely the chocolate chip version for that one"? But anyway, having already got my brioche fix in the morning, I tried to take a shortcut to the tax place and ended up lost in Sanitas, which is officially 'the dodgy part of Tours' - a quartier made up entirely of high-rise HLMs (State Housing) right next to the train tracks. The dodgy bit wouldn't have bothered me too much - it's broad daylight, and it's pretty much just code for 'Here Be Non-White People' I suspect - but I was literally on the wrong side of the tracks and there was no way to get over. By the time I finally found a pedestrian overpass, I had overshot the tax office and had to walk back up the road again, thus negating any possible benefit the 'shortcut' might have had. (On the bright side, this route did lead me past a building which is now a retirement home but was, in the Middle Ages, a home for lepers! You don't see that every day! I had a bit of a chuckle at the symbolism of having a 'ghetto' retirement home in an ex-leper colony. In fact, the leper home ended up giving its name to the whole area, 'Sanitas' being derived from sante - French for health. PS sorry I lost my special short keys to do accents when my laptop crashed, so you'll just have to imagine the accent on sante.)
Normally, I would take this as a Sign From Above to continue eating brioches (and also a good opportunity to work off like 1% of said brioche), but by the time I turned up, 5 minutes before the agency was due to re-open, there was a queue of about 35 people, which swelled to approximately 50 naughty French improper queuers by the time the doors opened.
Why so many? Well, as I would later discover, the taxe d'habitation is due TOMORROW. I still haven't received anything about it in the post, so I had no idea. I had to laugh (and internally hit my head against a brick wall) when I was talking to the tax agent later on and he told me La Poste doesn't forward any mail from the tax department, because otherwise people will try to get out of providing their real addresses to the tax man. This is literally the ONLY reason I paid them 23 euros to forward my mail. I haven't received one piece of forwarded post. Ah hahahaha, you just have to laugh or you'll cry.
Talking of crying, I almost did when I got to Man #1, who was in charge of screening people into the appropriate offices. I explained my whole situation to him - for those who aren't au courant, I was flatting with a French girl, I wasn't on the lease, I gave my rent money directly to her, she didn't pay either her rent or my rent for a year and lived off approximately 4000 euros of my money while quittin' her job to lie in bed all day. When this came to light, we were "asked to leave" the apartment and I had to find a new place without her lifting a single finger to help me with anything. Everything got squared away with the rent money, but I was still left incurring at least a couple thousand euros of expenses in the move. Anyway, I explained a brief version of all this, and the guy was all like "but you weren't on the lease?", "No", "then you shouldn't be responsible for paying". HALLELUJAH! But 2 minutes later he was just all "well, *normally* you shouldn't be responsible for paying, but for some reason the full amount is in your name, nothing's in her name and so hey, guess what, you're on the hook for the full 450 euros". He basically just did his best Gallic shrug when asked why that should be if I was never on the lease and he JUST SAID that I should therefore not be responsible. And then he was all "you can wait to see my colleague if you like, but he's just going to tell you the same thing". This is about the point where I was ready to burst into tears, but I held it together and said I would wait for his colleague, which just earned more "it's your funeral" type shrugging from him.
So, colleague it was, and I must say, this guy was super nice. He took the time to listen to everything I had to say and give me a little fatherly advice about how you should never be in a flatting situation without something in writing, even if it's with friends or partners, even if it's not a proper lease but just something scribbled on the back of an envelope. So yeah, too late for me, but maybe someone reading this will learn from my mistakes...
Another "pro tip" from the pit of despair - we talked about why it would be that it somehow ended up in my name. At first he just said that he didn't know how it worked, but maybe since they had two names on the tax declaration (she did apparently declare she was living there too, which is at least a start I suppose), they just picked one at random. Then he said something interesting - that I might have 'missed something' on the tax form. He explained that you can tick that you're in a flat as an owner, a renter, or that you're living there for free. Now here's the interesting bit - living there for free, in the eyes of the taxman, doesn't necessarily mean you're not paying rent, it just means that you're not legally responsible for the place e.g. you're not on the lease and therefore you don't get assessed for the tax. I had no clue about this, so I obviously ticked 'tenant'. He suggested that she might have been maligne (which means clever, but there's an air of 'sneaky, tricky' about it - you can see the relationship with malignant in English) and ticked that SHE was living there for free, and thus landed me right in it. And you know, that wouldn't bloody surprise me a bit. He also said I was naive - perceptive one, this taxman!
So Mr. Nice Taxman suggested that I needed to get on to the agency that rented us our old flat (rented HER our old flat, I should say) and try to get either a copy of the lease or the etat des lieux de sortie (the paperwork she would have signed on moving out) to prove that she was on the lease and I wasn't, and then they might be able to shift it on to her, which understandably they can't do just on my say-so (even if they have bloody well stuck me with it IMHO unfairly in the first place). If the 450 euros had been divided in two, I would have just paid my part, but it would really kill me to have to pay her part as well, and I know she's never going to give me the money just if I ask for it (for one thing, I "technically" still owe her for the last two months' expenses and supposedly some rubbish tax (as in, stuff you throw away, not bullsh!t) she'd never brought up in the previous 15 months I was there).
So I've called the agency, the woman I was dealing with is not there and wasn't answering her cellphone, so I left a message and am hoping she will get back to me, otherwise I'll have to like try and doorstop her the way she did when she came to get us for not paying rent, ha ha. Meanwhile, I am still legally responsible for this thing that's due tomorrow, and I don't really know what the consequences are for being late with it - the guy said they will "chase me" (although thanks to La Poste not forwarding their letters, I won't know about it ha ha) but I don't really know beyond that. He suggested maybe paying it and getting a refund, but I don't really trust that that will work out. Honestly, I hope that bitch falls into a well, I really do.
I've just come back from the tax office, since that seemed like a completely fun way to spend my day off. Actually, I first went by in the morning, only for there to be a huge queue in front of me. Since there wasn't that much time left before they closed for lunch, I thought I would be all clever and turn up before they reopened their doors after the break.
Usually, if I need to go to this part of town, I make a detour past the best damn briocherie in Tours. I was kind of embarrassed this morning, cos the lady knew my order without me having to say. Maybe I've been there a couple of extra times lately, with the train trips to Chenonceaux and Poitiers (it's right next to the station), but I swear, normally it's only like once a month max that I end up nearby! Or maybe she just looks at me and thinks "definitely the chocolate chip version for that one"? But anyway, having already got my brioche fix in the morning, I tried to take a shortcut to the tax place and ended up lost in Sanitas, which is officially 'the dodgy part of Tours' - a quartier made up entirely of high-rise HLMs (State Housing) right next to the train tracks. The dodgy bit wouldn't have bothered me too much - it's broad daylight, and it's pretty much just code for 'Here Be Non-White People' I suspect - but I was literally on the wrong side of the tracks and there was no way to get over. By the time I finally found a pedestrian overpass, I had overshot the tax office and had to walk back up the road again, thus negating any possible benefit the 'shortcut' might have had. (On the bright side, this route did lead me past a building which is now a retirement home but was, in the Middle Ages, a home for lepers! You don't see that every day! I had a bit of a chuckle at the symbolism of having a 'ghetto' retirement home in an ex-leper colony. In fact, the leper home ended up giving its name to the whole area, 'Sanitas' being derived from sante - French for health. PS sorry I lost my special short keys to do accents when my laptop crashed, so you'll just have to imagine the accent on sante.)
Normally, I would take this as a Sign From Above to continue eating brioches (and also a good opportunity to work off like 1% of said brioche), but by the time I turned up, 5 minutes before the agency was due to re-open, there was a queue of about 35 people, which swelled to approximately 50 naughty French improper queuers by the time the doors opened.
Why so many? Well, as I would later discover, the taxe d'habitation is due TOMORROW. I still haven't received anything about it in the post, so I had no idea. I had to laugh (and internally hit my head against a brick wall) when I was talking to the tax agent later on and he told me La Poste doesn't forward any mail from the tax department, because otherwise people will try to get out of providing their real addresses to the tax man. This is literally the ONLY reason I paid them 23 euros to forward my mail. I haven't received one piece of forwarded post. Ah hahahaha, you just have to laugh or you'll cry.
Talking of crying, I almost did when I got to Man #1, who was in charge of screening people into the appropriate offices. I explained my whole situation to him - for those who aren't au courant, I was flatting with a French girl, I wasn't on the lease, I gave my rent money directly to her, she didn't pay either her rent or my rent for a year and lived off approximately 4000 euros of my money while quittin' her job to lie in bed all day. When this came to light, we were "asked to leave" the apartment and I had to find a new place without her lifting a single finger to help me with anything. Everything got squared away with the rent money, but I was still left incurring at least a couple thousand euros of expenses in the move. Anyway, I explained a brief version of all this, and the guy was all like "but you weren't on the lease?", "No", "then you shouldn't be responsible for paying". HALLELUJAH! But 2 minutes later he was just all "well, *normally* you shouldn't be responsible for paying, but for some reason the full amount is in your name, nothing's in her name and so hey, guess what, you're on the hook for the full 450 euros". He basically just did his best Gallic shrug when asked why that should be if I was never on the lease and he JUST SAID that I should therefore not be responsible. And then he was all "you can wait to see my colleague if you like, but he's just going to tell you the same thing". This is about the point where I was ready to burst into tears, but I held it together and said I would wait for his colleague, which just earned more "it's your funeral" type shrugging from him.
So, colleague it was, and I must say, this guy was super nice. He took the time to listen to everything I had to say and give me a little fatherly advice about how you should never be in a flatting situation without something in writing, even if it's with friends or partners, even if it's not a proper lease but just something scribbled on the back of an envelope. So yeah, too late for me, but maybe someone reading this will learn from my mistakes...
Another "pro tip" from the pit of despair - we talked about why it would be that it somehow ended up in my name. At first he just said that he didn't know how it worked, but maybe since they had two names on the tax declaration (she did apparently declare she was living there too, which is at least a start I suppose), they just picked one at random. Then he said something interesting - that I might have 'missed something' on the tax form. He explained that you can tick that you're in a flat as an owner, a renter, or that you're living there for free. Now here's the interesting bit - living there for free, in the eyes of the taxman, doesn't necessarily mean you're not paying rent, it just means that you're not legally responsible for the place e.g. you're not on the lease and therefore you don't get assessed for the tax. I had no clue about this, so I obviously ticked 'tenant'. He suggested that she might have been maligne (which means clever, but there's an air of 'sneaky, tricky' about it - you can see the relationship with malignant in English) and ticked that SHE was living there for free, and thus landed me right in it. And you know, that wouldn't bloody surprise me a bit. He also said I was naive - perceptive one, this taxman!
So Mr. Nice Taxman suggested that I needed to get on to the agency that rented us our old flat (rented HER our old flat, I should say) and try to get either a copy of the lease or the etat des lieux de sortie (the paperwork she would have signed on moving out) to prove that she was on the lease and I wasn't, and then they might be able to shift it on to her, which understandably they can't do just on my say-so (even if they have bloody well stuck me with it IMHO unfairly in the first place). If the 450 euros had been divided in two, I would have just paid my part, but it would really kill me to have to pay her part as well, and I know she's never going to give me the money just if I ask for it (for one thing, I "technically" still owe her for the last two months' expenses and supposedly some rubbish tax (as in, stuff you throw away, not bullsh!t) she'd never brought up in the previous 15 months I was there).
So I've called the agency, the woman I was dealing with is not there and wasn't answering her cellphone, so I left a message and am hoping she will get back to me, otherwise I'll have to like try and doorstop her the way she did when she came to get us for not paying rent, ha ha. Meanwhile, I am still legally responsible for this thing that's due tomorrow, and I don't really know what the consequences are for being late with it - the guy said they will "chase me" (although thanks to La Poste not forwarding their letters, I won't know about it ha ha) but I don't really know beyond that. He suggested maybe paying it and getting a refund, but I don't really trust that that will work out. Honestly, I hope that bitch falls into a well, I really do.
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