Even 'old' foreign bank accounts need to be declared

A reader from Occitanie has contacted us to warn about the importance of declaring foreign bank accounts – after he was hit with a large fine for holding one in Australia opened before he and his wife moved to France several years ago.

“It came up because we had a tax check of our small business and a couple of times we had brought some inheritance money that was in the account over from Australia,” he said.

At first the couple were accused of money-laundering, but showed their bank statements and explained. “They accepted that but said they would fine us personally for non-declaration. We also had an English account that was mostly dormant. They charged us €1,500 per year, per account for the last three years – the period covered by the check.”

As we state in the annual Connexion guide to French income tax, anyone with a foreign account opened, closed or used during a tax year that ‘habitually receives’ cash, shares or other investments should declare its existence on their tax return – as well as declaring income from it. Failure to do so can result in fines and possibly having to pay missing tax, increased by interest.