French tax + umbrella?

[martin-w]

Hi

I may be offered a role in France and I'm trying to find out how much tax etc. I will be liable for over there. Also can anybody recommend a *legit* umbrella company I can use for example?

Also, what can I claim in terms of living costs etc.?

Thanks in advance

[Newby]

Tax

It depends on the length of your contract. I understand it that you dont have to enter the french tax system if your contract is relatively short. Most companies will help you with that, Parasol, Giant, Filetravel. I have worked with the later two and asked about working abroad and they seemed not to have any problems with it.

[martin-w]

It depends on the length of your contract. I understand it that you dont have to enter the french tax system if your contract is relatively short. Most companies will help you with that, Parasol, Giant, Filetravel. I have worked with the later two and asked about working abroad and they seemed not to have any problems with it.

I'd probably be looking at 6 months tops. Thanks for your reply - I'll check this out.

[ASB]

I'd probably be looking at 6 months tops. Thanks for your reply - I'll check this out.

Is it:

1) Direct
2) UK agent
3) French Agent.

If 1 or 2 (1 in my case) I simply billed from my UK company. The French client paid said invoices. I decided that I was in no way resident in France and declined to join their system. The client lawyers got a bit arsey from time to time. In my case I was spending at most 5 days consecutively in France, often less. I didn't bother with a carte de sejour because strictly I never met the conditions for needing one.

It is possible I may have been illegal. However I believe not.

In any event I did come to the attention of the authorities in a failrly big way once and they did raise sme questions about my status. These were sucessfully deflected by the client.

Remember if you do join the French system:-

a) That doesn't of itself take you out of the UK one. You will probably be resident both in France and the UK. However the DTA should minimise any impact of this.
b) You probably don't want to join the French Social Security system. You should be able to continue paying UK NI instead of French SS. This may well be cheaper.