I just saw something in the French press today that the due dates for tax declarations have been released. Of course at the moment, I can't find the information - but it should be all over the press in the next few days.

Of course the Fisc has revamped their website. Looks nice - but it's very different from how it has been, so probably a good time to familiarize yourself if it:

Particulier

www.impots.gouv.fr

or for their English language information:

An individual

www.impots.gouv.fr

Haven't had a chance to play with the new site yet, but will start doing that soon. Let us know what you find out if you check it out yourself.

 

What I'm currently most interested in is whether or not the 10% abattement for retirees is still in place. The government had been talking about getting rid of it. So if anyone knows perhaps they would like to post here. It's a big issue for me.

 

There is indeed a change based on your income. I still need to search for more information about how this works in relation to the RFR.

 

Exchange rates to use for 2024, for each day of the year (transactions having been executed, involving currency exchange, have to for the day of the event). Source = European Central Bank, processed and shared by someone in the FB fiscal group.

 

Can't get your link to work (the message says I don't have the authorization to revise the page - was only trying to see it).

But if you're talking about French taxes, they seem to accept pretty much any "reasonable" exchange rate - whether the average for the year or the use of rates (monthly or daily rates) from any recognized exchange service. Or actually, any rate you can justify. (I use the year's average rate calculated based on the actual rate received each month on transfers - for my US SS and pension payments.)

The daily rate for the date of each transaction is often required for businesses with international transactions, but it's not nearly as critical for individual tax declarations, except perhaps in a year that has seen huge swings in the exchange rates that would materially affect the reportable amounts of the transactions.

 

But if you're talking about French taxes, they seem to accept pretty much any "reasonable" exchange rate

Absolutely correct! With one observation - while the service impots would accept any reasonable source, it has to be consistent and one needs to be able to justify it, in the event of a tax audit. The file was meant to provide an apparently acceptable source and consistency (if sourcing all transactions from it). Sorry about the access - it looks like it requires hip of the FB group.

 

Hi! I have a (hopefully quick) tax question for 2024. I moved to from the US in May 2024 to my French husband who was already living/working here. Prior to moving, I had a W-2 job in the US and also income from freelance projects. Once I moved, it took a few months to get my autoentrepreneurship up, so I have income in from that starting from Sept. 2024.

My husband and I had a call with the fisc, and the person was speaking pretty fast, so I didn't catch everything, but my husband is under the impression that I need to declare my US-based, pre-move income (from prior to mid-May) to the French IRS. I think he's wrong and that makes no sense, since I wasn't a resident here until May 2024. Even if I did declare that income, I already paid US taxes on it, so shouldn't be taxing me on it.

Does anyone have any insight into this? The page I found on the French tax website says you declare your income from the date of your move, not the entire year, if you move mid-year.

 

Does anyone have any insight into this? The page I found on the French tax website says you declare your income from the date of your move, not the entire year, if you move mid-year.

OK, this can get a bit tricky. On the one hand, yes you're right in that in the year you move to you normally only report income from the date of your arrival to the end of the year.

HOWEVER (and there is always a "however" in these things), in couples are taxed by "households" - not as individuals. Legally, there is a requirement that a married couple maintain a home in common (since that is the taxing unit). Now, we've had a number of couples through here who live apart - for various reasons - and there is apparently a way to declare that short of having an "order of separation" from a judge in the case of a couple contemplating divorce. (Which I gather is NOT your case.)

It might be a good idea to take an appointment with the local tax office to explain your situation to them and ask them what they want you to do. It's going to depend on when you got married and to some extent how long after your marriage you ed him here in . If you got married back in 2023, it may depend on how he filed his French tax declaration for that year. Or simply in including your pre-move US income in your 2024 declaration (in which case you will be eligible to take the FEIE in the US - though you may have to delay filing your US return).

We've had a couple of "odd" situations over the years and I can tell you that the Fisc is far more reasonable about these sorts of oddities than the IRS but only if you approach them up front with the right attitude - namely that of asking a question rather than stating what you think should happen.

 

The first thing to understand is there notion in of filing separately. The second is that income earned overseas when you are physically oversea is tax exempt.
It may depend on when you married ,given your French husband has been in throughout 2024. But it could potentially have an impact, negative or positive, on your household's RFR.

 

Hi All
I have a similar type of query. Some brief context - and I’m a UK national (previously resident in Italy; pre-Brexit until mid 2024)

• My (now) EU-wife has lived in for 20 years – filing every year
• We got married in late July 2024 – in – the first marriage for either of us
• I applied for my Carte de Sejour in late August. That’s still in progress with 2 prolongations
• I work as a freelance editor – all clients are non-French
• While I intend to as an auto-entrepreneur – that has been delayed due to lack of Carte de Sejour
• I continue to have income (all from non-French clients)

So as we understand things

• For 2025 we file a t declaration (which will be my first declaration for )
• Even though I am not in the system from a formal immigration perspective, I am tax resident
• We should declare my post-marriage (late July / or late August (post CDS application) income from all sources (including non-French clients)

Is that generally correct?

• I’m unsure about my pre-arrival income for 2024
• Our situation differs from that of Amefree, in that I arrived the same year (effectively the same-time) as our marriage

Any thoughts / insights are truly welcome

As widely suggested on this Forum (consistently so by Bev), an in-person discussion with the local tax office can help – and we intend to do that in the next few weeks

Many thanks

 

OK - for both of you in this situation. Normally, you would file a change of status (i.e. like getting married) as part of your first tax declaration for the year of the marriage. That used to involve filing multiple declarations all around, but that was changed several years ago (well after I got married here in ).

You may want to check the instructions for either the 2042 form (i.e. the basic form) for reporting a "change in status" (i.e. from single to married) and see what they say.

Then you have the matter of reporting the spouse's "change of address" for their year of arrival. Normally, when two French people get married, they might each have a separate address up until the date of the marriage (yeah, old fashioned, but it still happens) - but that's because chances are they have been filing declarations separately prior to the marriage. That should be covered somewhere in the instructions - but this is the part where you need guidance from the tax office if you can't find that bit.

Generally speaking, the best option is to declare everything upfront - and if your declaration is questioned, explain your situation (i.e. you thought you couldn't your business until your carte de séjour came through). The tax office has the ability to waive fines and penalties if they find your explanation reasonable - and at least when we've dealt with them like this, they seem to have a tendency to do so. They have also expanded the option to "correct" your declarations if you file something incorrectly, so they could also ask you to do a correction rather than hitting you with fines and penalties if you correct it in time.

 

Thank you, I am following this and trying to catch up on a US tax issue as well

 

Even if I will be filing online, and the service is now available, I'd like to fill out the forms (as I've done in the past) offline, first, to make sure fields have not changed from previous year, on the 2042s (main and C-Pro) and 2047. What I no longer recall from last year, though, is approx. when the forms become available, post online svc. opening (still Millésime 2024 only, at this time). Does anyone know?!?

 

The instructions for last year (2023) I'm sure are available online. Moreover that should also be the case for this year (2024).

That said I doubt that what you are proposing is a good idea, not only because of the tighter deadline, but also because it will be more difficult to determine next year precisely how you did it.

 

You can submit paper declaration if you don't have the appropriate internet access, eg the same as last year or unstable access etc. It's pretty or very hard for les impôts to determine that.

 

One thing about French taxes - the timing always seems to vary from one year to the next. I use ClickImpot to do our taxes, and it seems like every year there is some new or revised form that doesn't get posted, finalized or incorporated into the online system until just a week or so before the first e-filing deadline. And before that, the actual filing dates for the all-paper declarations, the "tax season" dates could vary from March to May - you do have to keep up with the news here to know what's what.

What was even more fun years ago was when the legislature continued changing the tax laws up until Dec. 31st of the tax year - which would, of course, delay the finalization of the paper forms, and the resulting filing dates.

 

RE: timing 2042 PDF
According to toutsurmesfinances.com:

"Le formulaire 2042 PDF n’est pas encore disponible à ce jour ; il faut encore patienter. L’an é, le 17 avril 2024, six jours après l’ouverture du service de déclaration en ligne pour 2024 (intervenue le 11 avril), le portail des impôts avait mis à disposition des contribuables la plupart des formulaires vierges PDF à télécharger et à imprimer, annexes à la déclaration principale. Le fameux formulaire 2042 de déclaration des revenus a été, quant à lui, proposé en téléchargement une semaine plus tard, à compter du mercredi 24 avril."

About a week after the grand opening roughly corresponds to my dates from previous years for both the 2042 and 2047 forms and instructions. I think the site opened ahead of schedule, so I'll be checking it again on Friday. It's curious that the 2042 paper form has already been mailed and received. Fingers crossed no bugs this year!

 

RE: timing 2042 PDF
According to toutsurmesfinances.com:

"... L’an é, le 17 avril 2024, six jours après l’ouverture du service de déclaration en ligne pour 2024 (intervenue le 11 avril), le portail des impôts avait mis à disposition des contribuables la plupart des formulaires vierges PDF à télécharger et à imprimer..."

That's what I was looking for! Thank you! I can put this off, then, for another week.

 

This will be me and my partner's first year to file. I have question about the household filing situation. We are not married or PACs, have no plan/desire to do this, but we live together and operate as a household unit. In my reading it sounds like we file separately with '1 share of family quotient'. (see screenshot below) Is this mandatory, do we have an option to file as a household unit? Is anyone else in this situation, and if so, can you confirm or deny? Thank you in advance. Likely not going to be my only question.

 

You don't get many options when you file here in . If you aren't married or PACS'd, then you each file separately.

Actually even if you were married or PACS'd there aren't many "options" in the French fiscal system. If you're from the US it can seem kind of "constraining" at first - but in the long run it is actually quite a bit simpler than the US tax filing system.

 

Question for those who started their online filing: are you able to "pull in" the 3916s from last year? Last year I was able to get them all, one by one, from the previous year, with the option to modify inside, if need be (e.g. closing an ), but this time, when choosing the 3916s as annexes (through the beginning of process choice of foreign s) I get an "empty bucket" (no pre-filled forms). This means that I will have to recreate all 3916s from scratch (I know - I could use the info I saved last year, or from the large PDF with info from the docs section on the impots site, then copy-paste, but this is still a pain in the a**!)

 

Yes, for me the foreign s 3916 annex remains valid if you used it in the last filing, and all details are carried over as a draft for the new filing, but apparently, according the the alert, you only get one chance to update the annex (which makes no sense to me, I mean you might want to double-check, and correct the details, like with any other data entry, but never mind).

One detail, for example, is opening a Wise (note the French fisc quotes 'Transferwise' as an example of a foreign to be declared even though it is Wise not 'Transferwise') and then opening other Wise s for other currencies. Should you declare each one, which are out of your control, or just the 'master' to which the others are associated?

 

Hi there everyone. More extremely basic overview questions for a first year filer:
1. So 2042 is the basic form, 2041 is the instructions for the form, and as you fill out 2042 the other forms you need will become apparent in the instructions?
2. You're on your own for translations of all forms and instructions?
Again, thanks in advance!

 

Almost. Yes, form 2042 is your basic form - and there exists a number of additional 2042 forms for various categories of stuff that doesn't fit on the basic 4 page form. This is where to get the full array of 2042 forms:

Formulaire n°2042

www.impots.gouv.fr

Including the plain old vanilla 2041 NOT, which is the instructions for filing the 2042 forms. There are a variety of 2042-NOT in various languages, but these are mostly for non-residents who need to file French income taxes for whatever reason. The basic instructions only seem to be available in French. However, try dropping a pdf copy into Google Translate or a similar program and see what you get. (Haven't tried this myself. Some of the specific tax terminology may get some "odd" translations into English, but this is how we learn new specialized vocabulary.)

Actually, things tend to work the other way around. You fill out the "other" forms that you need and those are pretty good at referring you to where on the basic form (2042) you need to carry the various numbers. (Sort of how the online filing system works - so again, a good way to start to learn the French tax system.)

As a new arrival, you probably will only need the 2047 form (for foreign sourced income). So here's your link to that:

Formulaire n°2047

www.impots.gouv.fr

Again, try running the form and the NOT (Notice) for the form through a translation program. The instructions for the 2047 form give you some pretty specific information on how to report investment income (including bank interest) by country. The 2047 form also points out quite explicitly where to carry your various totals on the 2042 form.

Other than that, you might (at some point) have need for other forms, like the 2044 (property rental income) or 2074 (investment income, gains and losses).

Don't forget, too, that all your foreign (i.e. non-French) bank and other investment s need to be reported on forms 3916 (which go with your 2042 form). This is sort of like the FBAR requirement in the US, but you don't have to report any balance information. If you don't exactly when you opened any of your foreign s, just give it a good faith guess.

The impots.gouv.fr website has two sections - one for "International" and the other for "International (english)" which can be really useful. The stuff translated into English tends to be oriented toward non-residents filing from overseas, but there is still quite a bit of useful information there.

 

The google translate worked for all the forms and instructions, but only to view online, so I screenshot each page and saved as a pdf. Now I have translations for everything. Also, thanks for the tips on the order to fill the forms - also didn't have 3916 on my list - now I can organize this process in my 🧠.

 

Glad to know it worked. I use a tax preparation software - but even they use the same general approach as the online forms for the Fisc. Fill in all the "informational" stuff on the form 2042 - name, address (including the stuff indicating if you only just moved to ), how many people in your family, etc. etc.

Then, as far as filling in numbers goes - in your case I'd start with the form 2047. Read through your translated "Notice" to see what applies in your case and then go from there. And pop back in here as questions come up.

 

And next question - do you really have to provide your lease or rental agreement as of 31 Dec 2024, or they won't process your form? I ask because I'm pretty nomadic, and I've been piecing together different accommodation for a while now while looking for a house. So for that time, I have a...storage unit lease where my stuff was, and that's it. I was traveling around, in and out of the country. Any thoughts or other experiences on this? 🙏

 

Where do you receive your postal mail? Because they officially want to know your address as of January 1st of 2024 (or as of the date you first moved to if it falls in 2024) and, if applicable, the address you are using currently for filing your taxes (ostensibly your address as of January 1st 2025 - since that is what is used for taxe d'habitation purposes).

 

Well, I'm in a short term housesitting gig from 1 April to 31 October. I have a friend who lets me use their address, and I have set up things in the past to have that be my address when I need a justicatif. But I don't want to wear out my welcome on that, so I'm moving mail receipt to my housesitting gig. But I don't have a lease that's technically valid for 31 Dec 24 or 1 Jan 25.

 

You realize, of course, that you will receive your Avis d'imposition at the address you give them as your 1 January 2025 address. And, with the new rules on homeowners having to report their residential property (including who is actually living there) you could cause problems for whoever you are house sitting for if their report on the property doesn't match up with what you report on your tax declaration.

 

I wasn’t going to use the house sitting address as my Jan 1 address, just my current address. I will be here when the tax notice comes. I didn’t know about the consequences for the homeowners, and I certainly want to avoid complications for others. My real question is what does one do when one doesn’t fit the mold? I had a break in temporary housing, and rather than find something that didn’t suit me, I decided to go traveling until another opportunity arose. It just happened to occur during the dates that so many things are based on. Is there any other solution? Any ideas?

 

what does one do when one doesn’t fit the mold?

That's a really risky position if you are living in . Your "residence" is an important part of your identification here and whatever address you give, you will be considered responsible for any and all information, forms and other documents the government may send to you there.

 

Next question for first time filers on 2042, section 6, about box 6QW - to check if you are newly domiciled in in 2024 'Vous êtes nouvellement domicilié en en 2024'. It seems so straightforward that the answer would be to check it. But section 6 on that form is for deductible charges, and a subheading is retirement savings. Also, check mark on first page indicating this is my first year to file already basically says the same. Am I overthinking?

 

A quick check of the forms leads me to think that because it is in the section for Epargne de Retraite it has to do with someone who is eligible for the deduction for contributing to a retirement savings program (kind of like an IRA in the US). Doesn't apply to you.