June 2026
You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side, yeah
We chased our pleasures here
Dug our treasures there
But can you still recall
The time we cried?
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Everybody loves my baby
Everybody loves my baby
She get high
She get high
She get high
She get high yeah
I found an island in your arms
Country in your eyes
Arms that chain us
Eyes that lied
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through oh, oh yeah
Made the scene week to week
Day to day, hour to hour
Gate is straight
Deep and wide
Break on through to the other side
Break on through to the other side
Break on through, break on through
Break on through, break on through
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
From Wikipedia:
“Break On Through (To the Other Side)” is a song by the American rock band The Doors. It is the opening track of their debut album, The Doors (1967).
The news has become so dense, with so much happening in so many different areas, that I have chosen to stay away from it all. Summertime is coming, and everybody is looking at what may happen in September. Many think the old normal still exists. Political life slows down for about two months, and campaigning for the midterms resumes when children go back to school. It feels like the midterm election campaigns started several months ago and will not slow down until the voting is over. The longer the new way of running the USA lasts, the more the good old days of predictability will be gone for good.
I continue to follow the news closely, wondering what it would take to find efficient solutions and the right people to carry them through. As I said in my last issue, I always believed that the USA was the best country for innovation in just about all aspects of life. Clearly, today, China is where innovation blossoms and is disseminated to the rest of the world.
Even though I am not a great fan of The Doors, I admire their songs, both the music and the lyrics. I even read poems by Jim Morrison when a friend lent me his book. Also, as I explain below, since my youth, I have enjoyed intellectual exercises that involve thinking the unthinkable. That is one aspect of my law studies that I enjoyed a lot, taking the position of the opposite party and seeing how I would win the case. Thus, I find this desire to “Break On Through” and check what is on “the Other Side” extremely interesting. No need to take drugs to think that way.
THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX
This was a popular expression when I lived in the USA in the 1980s, and apparently, it is used just as frequently today. Since I no longer live in the USA, I have to rely on my impression and maybe my intuition when I say the expression seems to have lost a lot of its meaning, possibly unconsciously. The American people have reached such a level of polarization that it is increasingly difficult to think transgressively. I could list many statements and thoughts that go against the idea of thinking outside the box. One obvious thing for me is that, as long as a person thinks his/her side is right and the other side is wrong, regardless of the issue, it is difficult to start the thought process by assuming that the so-called normal way is wrong and so I need to think differently with a different set of presuppositions and observations.
I remember a moderator of the American Church in Paris about 20 years ago. He was a senior manager of a multinational’s French subsidiary. We were talking about working conditions and the differences in the office between France and the USA. He told me he would often stop a brainstorming session with his team and move it from the conference room to a café nearby. He felt that putting them in a different environment forced his team to adapt so that they ended up thinking differently. This is pretty much the definition of “thinking outside the box” in terms of getting out of the physical box of the office.
I have always enjoyed the intellectual exercise of thinking the unthinkable. At first, what comes up seems nearly like pure insanity, but then comes the reflection on whether this is possible, if highly improbable. This is when one finds efficient solutions, especially in France, where there can be a significant difference between what is legal and what is the right solution with the lowest level of risk exposure and, therefore, possible liability.
That is what I had in mind last month when I wrote this:
“At the time when I lived in the USA, the country operated by taking risks; people wanted to improve their lives and move ahead. Today, my impression is that people living in the USA are scared of the future; they seek security, stability, and predictability. There are many reasons why the country ended up in this condition.”
Luigi Pirandello’s 1921 play Six Characters in Search of an Author illustrates my point. Written in Italian (Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore), it is an “absurdist metatheatric play about the relationship among authors, their characters, and theatre practitioners,” as Wikipedia puts it.
Common sense tells us, and it is universally understood, that authors create their characters, whether in a novel, a play, a movie, or what have you. The quality of the plot and characters proves how good the author is. Therefore, it seems insane at first to even consider an alternate reality where the characters exist by themselves. They wait for the author to find them and finally give them the life they deserve. This play, which is over a century old, makes the characters collide with the real world, with the actors in rehearsal and the stage director, who are trying and failing to impersonate them. One reason could be that the characters got hold of the actors, and not an author who would have done the job right. I believe that the majority of the people in the USA, France, and elsewhere dismiss all this as a waste of time, useless insanity. Others acknowledge that it opens interestingly and discuss how faithful the actor is to the character. Is the author the right person to direct the play or the movie? In the end, who owns the characters, the author or the public?
Going back to my initial point, is genuinely thinking outside the box the only way to resolve the crisis the USA is going through? I follow American politics, and the situation is not getting any better. How should either side of the aisle think in order to find efficient solutions?
ELECTRONIC BILLING, THE SEQUEL: TOTAL CONFUSION
As the deadline for electronic billing in France nears, the plot thickens, and we get more information. By the way, it is possible that more information makes the situation more confusing.
The new key element I discovered is that there are two different types of electronic billing. The first type is what you, as an independent business, will be issued. That was what everybody was talking about at first.
I discovered after speaking to a French expert-comptable that there is another side to the question. Initially, it felt like we were undergoing an absolute absence of communication, as I was pushing my initial explanation, which I believed I understood quite well, and she was pushing the fact that my understanding was wrong and that electronic billing was mandatory for everybody this September. After more research and another discussion, I realized that the new procedure will be required not just for invoices you issue but also for invoices you receive and pay.
In other words, large businesses will be obliged to send their invoices electronically this September. We, small businesses, will not be able to open those bills and pay them unless we are registered with one of the special electronic billing organizations registered with the French administration. This part of the government’s project forces everybody to register, but small businesses will continue at first to send Word or PDF invoices. It is expected that eventually about 150 sites will offer these services. As of a few weeks ago, there were over 100, and the number is growing. Some charge money, others are free. Those in the first category claim that they are charging for a global service that goes beyond the minimum legal requirements. Because the French fiscal administration is not sure it will be ready on time, my advice to everybody who needs such a service is to choose a free one. That way, whatever happens, you will be set up.
The platform represented by this website, for example, is easy to understand, which alone is welcome:
www.henrri.com
Below is a translation of the French government’s page introducing the list of registered platforms, as of January 19, 2026.
Electronic Invoicing: List of Approved and Registered Platforms
The electronic invoicing reform will be phased in for businesses starting September 1, 2026. As part of this change, it is mandatory to choose a platform approved by the government. The list of these platforms has just been published.
The requirement to issue electronic invoices will take effect:
- on September 1, 2026, for large companies and mid-sized companies (ETIs);
- on September 1, 2027, for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and micro-enterprises.
The requirement to receive electronic invoices will take effect for all businesses starting September 1, 2026.
Each business must choose a government-approved platform to:
- issue and receive electronic invoices;
- report its data to the government;
- process transaction and payment data.
View the list of approved platforms registered with the tax authorities.
https://entreprendre.service-public.gouv.fr/actualites/A18759
MY FEES WILL INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2026
I will be increasing my fees by 20% at the beginning of the next scholastic year, after the 2026 summer vacation. Here are the new rates:
1st meeting/1st work: 420€ euros for 2 hours
Extra hour(s): 180 euros per hour
Handling mail at my office: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-office meetings: 90 euros, assuming less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend, on national French holidays, and during vacations: 30%
Clients paying by wire to an American account must add $20 to the fee to cover the bank charge for processing a wire transfer.
Bounced checks incur a charge of $20 or 20 euros.
THE SHIP STUDIO IS AVAILABLE FOR RENTAL IN JULY 2026
The SHIP studio is currently available on July 1st if the current tenant does not extend the lease. I am finally getting a lot more requests and have had to refuse a few lately, as it was already rented. When people contact me about renting it, I send them to the website. I hope it shows how cozy the accommodations are. The monthly rent of 1,400€ is all-inclusive. While I continue to favor rentals lasting between two and six months, under certain conditions, I have accepted one-month rentals.
https://www.jeantaquet.com/home-in-paris
A SHORT ISSUE THIS MONTH
I cannot remember the last time I drafted such a short issue. Several things explain why I did not have the time or desire to write more. Lately, there has not been much news regarding French immigration or other topics important for foreigners living in France. We have had visitors, close friends as well as Rhobi Samwelly, founder and director of the non-profit Hope for Girls and Women Tanzania, who spent six weeks with us. The French non-profit Hope for Girls and Women France was able to sponsor her stay and organize events to promote her organization’s activities..
Best regards,
QUESTION
GIVING OUR PARISIAN APARTMENT TO OUR CHILDREN
My brother and I own with our spouses a Parisian apartment we bought a long time ago. We all reside in the USA, including my two children, i.e., one daughter and one son. My brother does not have children. The idea now is to give them the ownership of the apartment while we continue to use it during our stays in France.I need to calculate the gift tax and approximate notaire fees based on an approximate value of the apartment of €590,000. The apartment is in the 15th arrondissement, about 50 square meters. The four of us are about the same age, between 75 and 80. How can this be done, and how expensive will it be for everything, taxes, fees, and other?
ANSWER
This is a rather complex procedure in France, as it deals with some old legal concepts that are common in France and virtually unknown in the USA, except among legal scholars.
The usufruct, i.e., the right to enjoy the use of the place, will be dissociated from the ownership, i.e., whose name is on the title. Here are some key definitions concerning the right of ownership in France:
1) The French legal definition of civilian property ownership (3 types of interest)
The French legal system uses Latin words to describe ownership:
Usus is “use” of a thing.
Fructus is the “fruit,” i.e., all income and other rights that enjoyment of the thing can entail;
Abusus, literally “abuse”, is the right to buy, sell, give away, destroy, or transform the thing.
2) The splitting of these interests
The French legal concepts of usufruit and nue-propriété come from the concept of splitting the French right of ownership. Usufruit, or usufruct in English, is a combination usus (the use) and fructus (the income). Nue-propriété has to do with abusus (the power of decision). When one person is the usufruitier, and another is the nu-propriétaire, their different interests are obvious: The usufruitier lives in the place or rents it, and takes care of its maintenance. This right normally ends with his/her death. The nu-propriétaire has official ownership of the place, but gets it only when all other rights end.
Here is an example to illustrate how it works. The specifics of your situation would require doing it differently (for instance, this example assumes you have just one son and one daughter and the market value is €570,000), but the legal mechanics would be the same:
You give your bare ownership (nue-propriété) to your son;
Your wife gives her bare ownership to your daughter.
Your brother gives his bare ownership to your son.
Your sister-in-law gives her bare ownership to your daughter.
Thus, the two children each own 50% of the nue-propriété, while you, your brother, and your wives retain a life tenancy on the apartment.
The taxes that will be due on this gift are lower for a blood child than for a nephew or niece.
This is an approximation of the cost, according to the guidelines of the law:
1. The market value of each gift
It is €570,000 divided by 4, or €142,500. That is how much each co-owner is giving.
2. The taxable value of each gift
Each of you retains 30% of the market value, or €42,750, and so each is giving the taxable amount of 99,750€ (the remaining 70%).
3. The calculation of each gift’s deductions depends on who is receiving the gift:
For a child of the giver, the amount is €100,000 when the child receives the gift. You are giving to your son, so the amount of tax is €0. Your wife is giving to your daughter, so the amount of tax is €0.
For a nephew or a niece of the giver, there is a deduction of €7,967. On your brother’s gift to your son, the amount of tax is €99,750 minus €7,967 = €91,783 times 0.55 = €50,481. The same figures apply to your sister-in-law’s gift to your daughter.
TOTAL TAX = 100,962€
The notaire fee for each transaction is 1.596% TTC. So, for each transaction, €142,500 times 1.596% = €2,274. For the entire transaction: €2,274 times 4 = €9,097.20
Since this is a family project, I advise you to split the total cost among the four of you: €110,058 divided by 4 = €27,514.55 each.
That is a sizable amount, and I can understand if it gives you second thoughts. But the benefit of doing it this way is that when any one of the four usufruct holders dies, complete ownership of that person’s quarter will immediately be transferred to the son or daughter without any probate procedure in France or the USA. The transfer is completely and immediately automatic. Therefore, the recipient has zero tax or fees to pay to anyone, because it is not a transaction. For this kind of peace of mind, some people might think the amount cited above is not that much after all.
QUESTION
SECURING IMMIGRATION STATUS WHEN OLDER AND IN POOR HEALTH
I have lived in France on and off, but mostly in France, since the 1990s, working as a French independent. I got stuck in the USA for about five years, and I was told that I needed to ask for a new visa, while I thought that I could resume my stay since the current carte de séjour had expired only for two years. I used my French business to get the self-employed status, and I entered it on May 5, 2017, securing this immigration status. I realized that URSSAF had unilaterally closed my French business without telling me. They sent the letters to my French address since I did not have mail forwarding set up. Today I hold a four-year carte de séjour expiring in October 2026. In 2024, I barely made minimum wage, and the 2025 billing was less than €3,000. My medical condition has worsened over the last few years, so I pretty much live exclusively on my American retirement, Social Security, and my pension. What can I do to renew my self-employed status?
ANSWER
Today, to renew one’s self-employed status, the annual sales amount must be at least €28,000. It is impossible to renew this status with an income as low as you cite. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to hope for leniency from the prefecture because of your age and past success. Therefore, you need to ask for a different type of status.
Any request for French immigration status that is not related to work is linked instead to the applicant’s private life. The common understanding of private life limits it to being in a marriage or other romantic relationship. But by my estimate, there are some 40 different types of status. So I systematically ask clients questions to determine if they have any possibility of asking for private life status. One condition for it is often talked about but misunderstood by many. If the applicant can prove a continuous and permanent presence in France, legal or otherwise, for a minimum of ten years, it justifies being eligible for a carte de séjour based on vie privée et familiale. In your situation, you will be at least eight months short, so the file you submit before the card expires in October cannot be based on this ten-year provision.
However, I see a strategy to get around this barrier. Submit the renewal request the day before your card expires. That will gain you a fair amount of time. Your appointment at the prefecture will likely be set for about three months later. The first part of your file should contain the normal self-employed documentation. This makes sense, since you booked the appointment on that basis. The second part should provide voluminous documentation of your almost continuous presence in France for over 30 years, citing Article L313-11 a.7 of the Code de l’entrée et du séjour des étrangers et du droit d’asile (Code on the Entry and Residence of Foreign Nationals and the Right to Asylum). This article states that if the applicant proves that their ties with France outweigh the need to apply the law, then the carte de séjour should be issued.
Here is the provision and a translation of it:
7° A l’étranger ne vivant pas en état de polygamie, qui n’entre pas dans les catégories précédentes ou dans celles qui ouvrent droit au regroupement familial, dont les liens personnels et familiaux en France, appréciés notamment au regard de leur intensité, de leur ancienneté et de leur stabilité, des conditions d’existence de l’intéressé, de son insertion dans la société française ainsi que de la nature de ses liens avec la famille restée dans le pays d’origine, sont tels que le refus d’autoriser son séjour porterait à son droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale une atteinte disproportionnée au regard des motifs du refus, sans que la condition prévue à l’article L. 313-2 soit exigée. L’insertion de l’étranger dans la société française est évaluée en tenant compte notamment de sa connaissance des valeurs de la République[.]
7. A foreign national who is not living in a polygamous relationship, who does not fall into any of the preceding categories or into those that qualify for family reunification, and whose personal and family ties in France assessed in particular with regard to their strength, duration, and stability, along with the living conditions of the individual concerned, their integration into French society, and the nature of their ties with the family remaining in the country of origin, are such that refusing to authorize their stay would constitute a disproportionate infringement of their right to respect for private and family life in light of the grounds for refusal, without the condition set forth in Article L. 313-2 being required. The foreign national’s integration into French society is assessed by taking into account, in particular, his or her knowledge of the values of the Republic.
To accompany your file, you should write a letter explaining in great detail how this provision applies to you, with all the supporting documents. The basic rule at the prefecture is that if there is a request file, it must be answered one way or the other. I strongly doubt that the prefecture will award you a carte de séjour on this basis, but it will review your file for quite a long time because the request is pertinent even though it is unusual (the provision is normally used for PACSed couples).
Thus, it is probable that by the time you get the rejection letter, you will have documentation for your latest ten years of presence in France. In this case, the solution most likely to succeed is to file an amicable appeal, slightly modifying the nature of the request.
If the negative answer arrives before the tenth anniversary of your renewed stay in France, it is still possible to submit the request based on the ten-year provision, since an undocumented alien can submit such a request.
Now, there is also a completely different approach: applying for visiteur immigration status based on your retirement income from the USA. But for this to work, you absolutely must close your self-employed business before asking for the change of status. Complying with the requirements for this status should be exceedingly simple, as you have your French address, the public CPAM system covers you, and you have your retirement money. Since you did not say anything about French retirement, I assume you have not yet asked for it. It would be wise to do so.
I want to stress the extreme danger of losing your immigration status altogether if you make the wrong decisions. To stress what I stated above, the renewal of your current card is impossible. You must decide whether you want to keep your business running or not.
If you do, the only solution is to obtain a private life immigration status. As I have explained, this requires taking a huge amount of work, time, money, and energy to prepare everything.
If you choose to close your business, the visiteur immigration status will be quick and easy to obtain.
Think of it this way: is your business worth the considerable headache involved?
DISCLAIMER
Please forward this message to all those who would be interested in its contents. The information contained in this newsletter is intended only as general information. I strongly urge readers to seek professional guidance concerning the legal and tax matters mentioned. This newsletter is intended as a general guide and is not to be taken as professional advice.