Rents and pensions taxed wrongly

SEVERAL readers have contacted us to report that problems have arisen again this year with UK rental income and UK government pensions being subject to French tax and social contributions.

There was similar confusion and mis-assessment last year by some tax offices. The Connexion explained this to tax officials in Paris earlier this year and a senior official confirmed that due to provisions in the UK/France double tax treaty a tax credit should be given covering French tax and contributions on these incomes.

We received the email reproduced below from the DGFiP, in which they confirmed that this is maintained even if these incomes have not had any British tax levied on them because the income fell below your UK tax allowance.

Follow this link to view and download a copy of the government email

We were assured that tax offices throughout France would be updated to avoid confusion this year but this does not appear to have happened in all cases.

However, there is some positive feedback. Reader Stephen Collier from the Lot-et-Garonne wrote saying he was wrongly assessed but then emailed his tax office quoting relevant articles of the treaty and the email sent to Connexion. He said: "I received a reply within a day saying I was indeed entitled to a rebate of the relevant amount of tax and all the social charges. So a big thank you."

If you have been incorrectly assessed in the first instance we suggest Mr Collier's approach, the relevant articles being 24, and (rents) 6, and 19 (pensions). Article 2 confirms that the social contributions are treated as tax for this purpose.

You can find your tax office’s email address at: www.impots.gouv.fr by clicking on "Contacts" at the top of the page.

See the Money page in October's Connexion for more on this topic.