I would like to wish you all you a great summer and a very nice vacation, enjoying the freedom of the moment. I will close my office on July 7th

“When I’m Sixty-Four”

When I get older, losing my hair
Many years from now
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings, bottle of wine? 
If I’d been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door? 
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?

You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could stay with you

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more? 
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four?

Every summer we can rent a cottage in the Isle of Wight
If it’s not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck and Dave

Send me a postcard, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in a form
Mine forevermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty-four? 
Ho!

Wikipedia
“When I’m Sixty-Four” is a song by the English rock band The Beatles, written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon-McCartney) and released on their 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney wrote the song when he was about 14, probably in April or May 1956, and it was one of the first songs he ever wrote.

Yesterday I turned 64.

Each of us has our own way of handling getting old. In the 1950s, turning 64 meant one had turned really old. Today many sixty-somethings are still in good shape and one could argue that the equivalent of being 64 in 1967 is now experienced at 74. The notion of aging, of being old, being young, feeling young, or feeling old, is very personal and depends on so many things. On the other hand, once you add the kind of job you do to the picture, thoughts turn to retirement, of the time when one stops working before dying. Common sense should dictate that manual workers retire earlier than people working in offices. In France, when retirement programs were linked to certain industries, that was common practice. One of the numerous reasons so many people demonstrated against the latest French retirement reform, which added two years to the age at which workers have the right to full retirement benefits, was that the measure did not differentiate among all the different situations in the labor force.

Then there are economic immigrants, whose bodies are often abused from an early age. For many, retiring at 64 means having worked for 50 years. Once they arrive in a Western country like France, they usually start out working at horrid jobs. After several years, they obtain a legal stay and can settle a tad more comfortably, but they often still work as manual laborers. The saddest thing I have seen in this regard is that many of these people worked for so long under the table, a.k.a. undeclared, that their credit with the national retirement system is insufficient for them to live on. Thus, they must continue to work, even if they are retired. This has become common enough that the media in France, the USA and other countries are covering this evolution of society.

THE OTHER IMMIGRANTS
About ten years ago, I helped a Filipina woman facing several major challenges at once. She held a carte spéciale because her employer was a diplomat in France. Her health insurance policy covered only the absolute minimum required. When I met her for the first time, she was battling breast cancer. In a matter of nine months, she obtained a private-life carte de séjour, gained access to the French public health care system, and started treatment for her cancer. For close to two years, her situation was my focal point until everything was settled and her remission from cancer confirmed.

Once she was declared to be in remission, I asked her if she could help me once a month by putting my column into HTML so it could be uploaded to my website in addition to being sent by email. Since June 30th, 2015, she has helped me do this except when she is in the Philippines or on a pilgrimage. She also works as a nanny and a cleaning lady, with seven employers scattered throughout Paris and its suburbs, and this is hard on her body. Our monthly meetings have changed the way she sees both her work, including what she does for me, and her worth. She came to be really good at this job. During the COVID curfew restrictions, her face beamed when I gave her the professional authorization to be out late, mentioning on my letterhead that computer assistant was her position.

This is the quote from the June issue that sparked some reactions which I found to be very interesting and I would like to share them.
“For what it is worth! At one point, one has to say that it was worth it. It meant going after dreams, and personal goals. In the eyes of many, it might not look like much. For them, it was not worth the effort. ‘For what it is worth, it was worth it for me.’ This is what I like to hear. Immigrants often never regain the social status or comforts that they had in their home country, but many tell me nevertheless that it was worth it. Let’s leave it at that.”

Last month, as we worked on sending out the June issue, she was quite moved when she read it.

That gave me the idea to ask her and other Filipina women to express how they feel about the statement “It was worth it.” I have always seen the Filipino motto as:
“Keep a low profile and get the job done.”

When Filipinas live away from the Philippines, whether in France, the USA or another place, they are there to work, earn money and support the rest of their family. In 2018, financial transfers from expatriates accounted for over 9.8% of the Philippines’ GDP.

Here is what my computer assistant told me about her own experience:
“Five years! My plan of staying here in France? I just wanted to try and see what life I could have here and then I planned to go back to the Philippines. Others say I am one of the luckiest people because I got a chance to come here to France, so I am giving it a try. It is not easy to be away from my family, but my income is much higher than what I earned at my job in the Philippines, so I guess it is worth it for me to stay for that time period. I didn’t know that five years could pass so fast and I got used to staying here. Many more years went by before I got sick. That time was the lowest point of my life as I was battling with my illness, trying to get my immigration status (legal papers) and was separated from my family. I kept asking myself if it was worth it to stay, given my situation, and then I met someone with the help of my employer. He guided me and helped me to cope with and overcome all my fears and problems until everything went well again in my life. Now I receive all my health benefits for free while holding nice, proper jobs at the same time. Is it worth the life that I chose? Yes, it has been WORTH IT! It is my choice to be in France; it is not just by chance.”

The hardships such women experience is mostly unknown. It is very rare for them to express how hard their life is. Even so, they almost all end up affirming, “It was worth it.” I respect and admire them for coming up with this evaluation. It is their life.

A MESSAGE FROM URSSAF REGARDING INCOME TAX DECLARATIONS
People commonly use the term “auto-entrepreneur” for working as an independent and running one’s own business. But it really just refers to a choice regarding how to pay social charges to URSSAF. There is a choice between the classic way, which is the normal way URSSAF collects money, and the “auto-entrepreneur” way, which involves a quarterly declaration and the payment of the related social charges, usually amounting to about 23%, for services related work. This side of running a business has evolved a lot in recent years. Before President Macron was elected, the classic status required two income declarations to be done: one sent to the tax office to calculate the income tax owed and one to URSSAF to calculate the social charges based on the profit made the year before, with some catching up done in the fall.

Since the spring of 2021, however, there has been only one income declaration, submitted to the tax office. That information is shared with URSSAF, which relies on it to make its calculations. When Americans think about how the Internal Revenue Service and the Social Security Administration have worked together for decades, they are often stupefied by the level of distrust that once existed between the two French administrative divisions. Mr. Macron promised during his 2017 presidential campaign to simplify and unify different entities of the administration doing the same thing. This proved true of health coverage, which was unified under the CPAM system as of January 1st, 2020. The retirement unification is still being worked on.

URSSAF recently sent a memo to everyone on its mailing list, regardless of the status the recipients have, explaining how the information from the tax office is used and how the social charges are calculated. This disturbed and worried a lot of people who think “auto-entrepreneur” is the only status that exists.

Here is a translation of the memo from URSSAF:
“Understanding the calculation of your contributions following your tax returnhttps://info.urssaf.fr/l/6521/500199940/22016/106423/294868/11f8de51

Between April and June, you declare your 2022 income on impots.gouv.fr. As soon as your declaration has been validated, the tax authorities forward it to URSSAF.

You will then receive the 2022 regularization document and the 2023 call for contributions. URSSAF has set up a dedicated website to help you understand the information contained in this letter.”

THE GENESIS OF THE FRENCH BUREAUCRACY
A client recently sent me this email:
“I really enjoy the history lessons you provide me. But overwhelmed by being at the Prefecture, I can’t remember the person who you told me was the father of French bureaucracy and taxation. I think you referred to Louis XI, but if you wouldn’t mind just pointing me in the right direction, I’ll really enjoy the research.”

My reply, “This king is rarely mentioned because he did nothing flamboyant. He did not build castles. During his entire lifetime, he acted as a statesman, building France as a unit, by defeating all his rebellious vassals and by creating a centralized structure, which later became the French administration.”

On May 1st, 1890, French unions commemorated these events by demonstrating in the streets to ask for an eight-hour workday. May 1st became a national holiday in 1948. The day is so protected by French law that any employee who is required to work that day gets three times the normal wage. Over the years, the holiday has been celebrated in various ways but it always ends with people marching down one of the large avenues or boulevards in Paris and most other cities in France.

Wikipedia
Louis XI (3 July 1423 – 30 August 1483), called “Louis the Prudent” (French: le Prudent), was King of France from 1461 to 1483. He succeeded his father, Charles VII.

Louis entered into open rebellion against his father in a short-lived revolt known as the Praguerie in 1440. The king forgave his rebellious vassals, including Louis, to whom he entrusted the management of the Dauphiné, then a province in southeastern France. …

When Charles VII died in 1461, Louis left the Burgundian court to take possession of his kingdom. His taste for intrigue and his intense diplomatic activity earned him the nicknames “the Cunning” (Middle French: le rusé) and “the Universal Spider” (Middle French: l’universelle araignée), as his enemies accused him of spinning webs of plots and conspiracies. …

Without direct foreign threats, Louis was able to eliminate his rebellious vassals, expand royal power, and strengthen the economic development of his country. He died on 30 August 1483 and was succeeded by his minor son Charles VIII. ….

Legacy
Eager to obtain information about his enemies, Louis created, from 1464, a net of postal relays all over France, which was a precursor to the modern French postal service.

Louis developed his kingdom by encouraging trade fairs and the building and maintenance of roads. Louis XI pursued the organization of the kingdom of France with the assistance of bourgeois officials. In some respects, Louis XI perfected the framework of the modern French Government which was to last until the French Revolution. Thus, Louis XI is one of the first modern kings of France who helped take it out of the Middle Ages. ….

Through wars and guile, Louis XI overcame France’s mostly independent feudal lords, and at the time of his death in the Château de Plessis-lèz-Tours, he had united France and laid the foundations of a strong monarchy. ….

Despite Louis XI’s political acumen and overall policy of Realpolitik, Niccolò Machiavelli criticized him harshly in Chapter 13 of The Prince, calling him shortsighted and imprudent for abolishing his own infantry in favor of Swiss mercenaries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XI

OFFICE CLOSED FOR SUMMER VACATION 
The office will be closed for six weeks over the summer holidays, starting on Friday, July 7th, in the evening and reopening on the morning of Monday, August 21st. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. The service I offer of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed. Unlike in recent years, I will be in the USA from July 19th to August 3rd. Of course, Sarah or I will honor the prefecture meetings already scheduled, as well as a couple of other engagements. It is also possible that my daughter, Lucille, will handle some situations as she is getting more and more involved in my business.

I would like to remind everyone there will be no August issue.

Best regards,

QUESTION

THE QUESTION OF CUSTODY IN FRENCH DIVORCES

I have been married to a Frenchman for several years now and I recently filed for divorce in France. I want to move back to the USA with my children as quickly as possible as I have professionally and personally no future in France. We just had the first hearing and the judge decided that we all must stay as it would be best for my children if they lived in France. This is scary as heck! I am now a prisoner of France. This should be illegal.

QUESTION

SHOULD YOU RENEW YOUR CARTE DE SÉJOUR OR ASK FOR A CARTE DE RÉSIDENT?

I got a passeport talent visa in the USA and moved to France during the summer of 2019. The visa lasted one year and I got a carte de séjour as a performing musician, which was valid for four years. It will expire in June 2024, My family and I are still living here and we are doing well. As the first request demanded a lot of documents about my career, I would like to know as soon as possible what the necessary steps are to apply for a renewal.

Cold, late night so long ago,
When I was not so strong you know, 
A pretty man came to me. 
I never seen eyes so blue. 
You know, I could not run away it seemed
We’d seen each other in a dream. 
Seemed like he knew me, he looked right through me, yeah. 
“Come on home, girl” he said with a smile. 
“You don’t have to love me yet, let’s get high awhile. 
But try to understand, try to understand
Try, try, try to understand, I’m a magic man.” 
Winter nights we sang in tune, 
Played inside the months of moon
“Never think of never let this spell last forever.” 
Well, summer lover passed to fall, 
Tried to realize it all. 
Mama says she’s worried, growing up in a hurry, 
“Come on home, girl,” Mama cried on the phone. 
“Too soon to lose my baby yet, my girl should be at home.” 
“Try, try, try to understand, he’s a magic man, Mama, ah, 
He’s a magic man.”

Wikipedia:
“Magic Man” is a song by the American rock band Heart released as a single off their debut album, Dreamboat Annie. Written and composed by Ann and Nancy Wilson, the song is sung from the viewpoint of a young girl who is being seduced by an older man (referred to as a Magic Man), much to the chagrin of her mother, who calls and begs the girl to come home. In an interview, Ann Wilson revealed that the “Magic Man” was her then boyfriend, band manager Michael Fisher, and that part of the song was an autobiographical tale of the beginnings of their relationship.

I saw this band in the summer of 1981 at Radio City Music Hall in New York, and I believe I own just about all their albums. As I was going through the biography of the band recently – which in effect means the lives of these two sisters – I realized how autobiographical and intimate the lyrics were.

Nevertheless, the lyrics are timeless, describing a situation that must have occurred time and again ever since the origin of the human race.

The choice of “Magic Man” as a title has nothing to do with romantic love. Rather, I am following with great interest the way former President Trump is still seen as a magic man. The American tradition has been that the former president disappears from the media and starts a new chapter of life as a private citizen. Both Mr. Trump’s decision to stay in political public life and the idolatry I see with many Trump followers are unusual departures from the past. Note this statement made on March 14th 2021 by Dr. Anthony Fauci on the “Fox News Sunday” program. Asked whether vaccination numbers among Republicans would increase were Trump to encourage inoculation, Dr. Fauci said: “I think it would make all the difference in the world. Trump is a such a strongly popular person … it would be very helpful for the effort for that to happen.”

Since the March issue, titled “Lean on Me (Tonight),” I have continued to be interested by the evolution of politics in the USA, France and several other countries: Policies, long-term visions for the country, political stands – in short, what used to fuel the political debate – seem to be declining. Today, way too often, I hear world leaders saying things like, “Trust me, I know what I am doing and I am taking care of you, I am protecting you.”

Considering how low the ratings of politicians and journalists are, it is clear that public trust is at an all-time low. Many believe this is a direct effect of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although it is true the pandemic has greatly corroded people’s confidence in their representatives and politicians in general, I think the problem has existed for a long time.

People should not believe in a magic man – or magic woman, for that matter. The only exception might be teenaged hearts beating with romantic love for the first time: young people are entitled to live this kind of love at least once in their life. That is why I find Heart’s lyrics so vividly depict that reality.

THE PARIS PREFECTURE IS REFUSING THE PUMA CPAM STATEMENT
The issue regarding PUMA and CPAM has never been properly solved. It stems from what was clearly an error in drafting the law. The basic rule is that people insured under PUMA currently pay a premium of 6.5% of worldwide income. But for some reason the law excludes foreign retirement income. The system does not charge anything if the declared income is less than 9,032€.

The very popular visiteur immigration status requires proof of either income or assets equal to at least minimum wage, which is 14,772€. So it would follow logically that all foreigners with visiteur status should pay something toward their health coverage. However, almost all of them are retired people receiving pensions and Social Security as the majority of their income, and those sources of revenue are excluded from the calculation, sometimes with the addition of royalties, rents, trust funds and the like. As a result, the income from earned income rarely exceeds the 9,032€ limit, even though the global income is considerably over this limit. So the system puts them in the same category as indigent people and both groups pay nothing for health coverage.

The prefecture requires proof of payment of the related health coverage premium to be submitted in the file. In normal circumstances this is a totally legitimate request. As I have explained above, if the foreign retirement income were included in the calculation, there would be no problem.

Since PUMA has existed, the Paris prefecture has vacillated between accepting and refusing the Assurance Maladie coverage issued by CPAM. The visiteur immigration status is issued when the applicant complies with the legal requirements, providing proof of sufficient means as described above, plus the address of the primary residence in France and comprehensive health coverage valid in France. When it is impossible to prove that the applicant is paying for such coverage, the request is refused.

That is what is happening at the moment. Concerned applicants then have to purchase a private policy duplicating the coverage they already have. Since most are retired and hence usually over 65, the premiums of such policies are expensive by French standards and few insurance companies issue them. Furthermore, what the prefecture is asking applicants to do is illegal: once a person is covered by Assurance Maladie, French law forbids their being covered by a private policy. It is also illegal to terminate public coverage in order to take out a private policy.

A few times over the years, the prefecture has demanded proof of termination of Assurance Maladie coverage, which impossible unless one moves away from France permanently and therefore loses the French immigration status.

For the time being, there is no good solution; the best thing is to purchase a private policy and make sure it can be cancelled once the carte de séjour is retrieved. In the past, the prefecture’s refusal to grant visiteur status in such cases has seldom lasted for long. Thus, when it is time to renew the card a year later, chances are that the policy have once again been reversed. I saw this latest change occurring in September 2020. I have no idea what triggered it.

THE LATEST ON BREXIT’S CONSEQUENCES AT THE PREFECTURE
Both common sense and a communication from the prefecture held that it was better to request French immigration status before the end of 2020, when the UK was still in the European Union, than in 2021. Last year after the prefecture reopened, I accompanied British citizens and helped them submit files showing whether they had been in France for more than five years or less. This was sometimes difficult to establish, as many people went back and forth, never really securing the status of France as their primary residence.

Since January 2021, the procedure has radically changed. The prefecture asks for the usual identification, proof of address and proof of means. There is no longer any question of proving seniority in France. Before, the issue was whether the carte de séjour would be valid for one or five years, but today everybody gets a minimum of five years. Furthermore, the carte de séjour is issued free of charge, as if the British citizens were still in the EU. That being the case, the card is sent in the mail by registered letter.

What surprises me the most is how easy the procedure has become. One reason is that now, to get an appointment at the Paris prefecture, the applicant sends the basic documents by email, so when the appointment is given, the documents are put in the file the prefecture prepares. Still, there is often a need for an update, so it is critical to bring all the documents requested just in case. I have no idea what will happen on July 1st 2021 when the current six-month transition period is over.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: IT IS ALMOST TIME TO DECLARE!
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would like to remind everybody that paper versions of the 2020 income declaration must be filed in France by 20th 2021midnight. The declaration forms are available at www.impots.gouv.fr on April 8th. That is also the day you can start filing your declaration on the same website. To do so, you need your tax ID number (numéro fiscal) and some access codes.

First-time income declarations to the French tax office should be prepared using the paper form, and the “first time” box on the CERFA #2042 form where it says Vous déposez une déclaration pour la première fois cochez” must be checked. It is possible to obtain the needed information from the tax office to declare for the first time electronically, but I tend to advise against this, because it is a lot easier to see and hence understand how the system works if the filer is looking at paper documents.

Note that if you file online, the deadline is later. The schedule depends on your postal code:

• départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on May 26th.
• départements 20 to 49 by J by June 1st.
• départements 50 or higher by June 8th.

An important reminder: If you are a French fiscal resident (i.e. if you hold acarte de séjour or an immigration visa validated with an OFII stamp, and comply with the requirements), you must declare your worldwide income to the French authorities even if you have no income in France and do not have the right to work in France. There is no penalty for neglecting to file, but not meeting this obligation is illegal and can have consequences.

You are a French fiscal resident if you: 

• stay in France 183 days in a calendar year, whether you have legal immigration status or not
• have immediate family members (spouse and/or minor children) living in France
• have a French employer
• run a French business, even something like tutoring schoolchildren in English.

Reminder: if you are self-employed in France, the quarterly declarations sent to URSSAF do not constitute income tax declarations, which must be sent to the tax office. Many foreigners are convinced that the quarterly declarations are their only fiscal obligation.

Now that income tax is deducted at the source, the amount owed is often low, sometimes even zero. But a problem may arise because the prefecture wants to see the income tax bill from the tax office, the avis d’imposition sur le revenu, before issuing almost any immigration status.

Unfortunately, the tax office is slow to send the avis, mainly because :
1 – The page dedicated to the declaration on the website is not open all year long, so very late declarations must be done on paper, slowing down the process.
2 – Once tax season has ended, if no tax is owed, there is no incentive to prepare the avis quickly.

WHAT IS A FRENCH BANK?
Until recently the answer to this question had a very easy answer. A French bank corporation was registered in France with headquarters in France; was a member of the Association des Banques de France; had physical locations where clients could go; had an International Bank Account Number (IBAN) starting with FR; and so on. Then two things happened.

SEPA
The first was that all EU countries became members of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) on February 1st 2016.

Wikipedia: The aim of SEPA is to improve the efficiency of cross-border payments and turn the previously fragmented national markets for euro payments into a single domestic one. SEPA enables customers to make cashless euro payments to any account located anywhere in the area, using a single bank account and a single set of payment instruments. People who have a bank account in a eurozone country can use it to receive salaries and make payments all over the eurozone, for example when they take a job in a new country.

In other words, there is now a European banking system using the same currency, the euro, which allows transactions, mainly automatic payments and wires, to occur throughout the system automatically, without banking fees. This involved French utilities in 2016, asking clients to sign new SEPA-compatible forms to enable automatic payments to continue.

Internet banking
The first online bank, the Dutch bank ING Direct, was established in France in 2000. Over the years, more and more online banks have opened. Some are subsidiaries of traditional banks, but not all. They give French residents access to full online banking services from non-French banks. They are all in the private sector, with healthy competition regarding service quality and costs.

The IBAN of an account is linked to where the banking corporation is registered. It starts with the country code – FR for France, DE for Germany, and so on. The French administration was not ready for that, and it has created a serious problem whenever the administration needs to make a payment to the bank account of an individual living in France. Their system is so antiquated that it blocks all payments to any accounts that do not have IBANs starting with FR.

With online accounts having become so popular, the consequences are catastrophic, especially for those unfortunates who are dependent on their regular payments from the Caisse d’Allocation Familiales. The administration is doing its best to fix this situation but is having trouble because the requirement of French residency prevails. With all European countries in the SEPA system, an IBAN not starting with FR is seen as an indication that the account holder lives in a different country, even if the entire file shows French residency and a French physical presence. Unlocking the system after verification could be possible.

The position of the prefecture
By definition, the prefecture is concerned about where an applicant lives. As everybody knows, virtually the first document asked for is proof of address dated less than three months back. So the issue of non-French online banks is again a problem. For many types of immigration status, applicants have to show bank statements. For visiteur status, for instance, the applicant must prove that he/she spends at least the amount of minimum wage in France, and this sum has to be deposited in the French account from a foreign source. A similar requirement holds for all types of immigration status based on self-employed activity registered in France. Payments received must match amounts invoiced, and the prefecture asks for the transactions to be highlighted on a copy of the statement, submitted in the file, to make them easier to identify. For a profession libérale status the applicant must show a minimum of 23,000€ in annual billing, of which 65% is taxable: 23,000 x 0.65 = 14,950€. (The minimum wage is 14,772€, so 23,000€ is an easy target to keep in mind.)

All this is easy to demonstrate as long as it is shown in a French bank account, which brings us back to the same problem. I have never asked the Paris prefecture which banks are accepted and which are not, although I recently found out that TransferWise, now called Wise is not considered a French bank for theprofession libérale immigration status. The current rules significantly narrow the choice of banks for opening a professional account since it will be scrutinized by the prefecture. Sooner or later I will have to ask the prefecture for a list of acceptable internet banks, given the problems this issue causes!

GUIDELINES ON LOCKDOWN AND INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL
I wish the available information on lockdown and international travel would remain valid long enough for me to give my readers reliable advice. We are living through challenging times, and almost all Western countries are prone to rapidly changing their policies order to better fight the Covid-19 pandemic. On March 18th, the French government announced a strict lockdown, with complex rules on what activities gave inhabitants the right to be outside. This policy was pretty much abandoned on March 20th, the day after it went into effect. The restrictions no longer constitute a lockdown, since there is no limitation on travel within a radius of 10 km (6.2 miles). The government announcement on March 18th envisioned these restrictions stopping on April 20th if the infection rate was under control by then. But in the current situation, reaching that goal seems unlikely in the Paris region and several other areas.

International travel has also been severely affected. The official governmental position is that the borders are sealed unless you can show exceptional and truly compelling reasons to leave or enter. But I know of large numbers of non-French people who have been leaving or returning to France, none of whom had problems at the airport, so I question how well this policy is enforced. I am aware of just one case, in which a 20-year-old Tunisian national and Italian legal resident, coming to France to visit his father for spring break, was denied entry. The reason was that he had no proof of means, i.e., he was traveling with hardly any money. He did not have valid proof of the address where he planned to stay and could not prove that it was his father’s residence. In short, it had nothing to with to do with the restrictions imposed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Under normal circumstances, any EU resident (which he was) has an automatic, undisputed right to travel to another EU country. Travel within the Schengen zone is supposed to be equivalent to domestic travel.

So, please take the following information with a grain of salt:

Guidelines issued on March 12th:
1 – It will no longer be necessary to have a compelling reason to travel to or from Australia, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea or the United Kingdom.

For travel to and from those countries, other restrictions on movement remain in force: among other things, it is still necessary to present a negative PCR test result done less than 72 hours before departure.

2 – The list of compelling personal reasons has been extended to include all family relationships and add new situations linked to family separation for:

• married couples and couples in civil partnerships (PACS), where one member lives abroad for professional reasons.
• minors attending school in France whose family home is abroad.
• separated couples with children where adult lives in France and the other abroad.
• students taking competitive examinations and those returning to their main residence in France.

Templates for exceptional international travel declarations will be updated at 

www.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Attestation-de-deplacement-et-de-voyagewww.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/L-actu-du-Ministere/Attestation-de-deplacement-et-de-voyage

MY BUSINESS HAS A NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
Over the holidays, my assistant, Sarah, took an interesting initiative and created a new Facebook page. It is a good move for her, since she and I both moderate it. She can show off her expertise and her ability to give good advice and clearly explain solutions. She does this in French, leaving the queries in English to me.

Since I am already active in a few Facebook groups and my website is my main showcase, I did not feel I needed such a page. On the other hand, it should no doubt benefit her sooner than later.

You are welcome to join:
https://www.facebook.com/rattachement

SUMMER VACATION: THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED JULY 9th to AUGUST 23rd
The office will be closed for a month and a half, starting Friday, July 9th, and reopening on Monday, August 23rd. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. My service of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed.

Best regards,

QUESTION

COMING BACK TO FRANCE LEGALLY WITH A VISITEUR VISA

I am an American and I have always intended to get some kind of long-term permission to stay/reside in France. Sadly, I procrastinated… and I am now kicking myself.

I want to apply for a carte de séjour. Have you heard anything about the border opening to allow Americans to travel to France in the near future? Pre-Covid, I traveled to France 3-4 times a year to stay in my Parisian apartment, but since I never overstayed the 90-day limit visitor, I didn’t concern myself with getting a visa.

If it seems that France is ready to open her borders to Americans, I might take a chance and book a ticket soon, knowing I might have to cancel it. Or should I wait until you feel it is time to go over everything I need to do to prepare for my arrival? For example, friends have told me in the past that they had to register as much as six months in advance for their in-person appointment to apply for the carte de séjour. I would like to secure an appointment by August or September at the prefecture after my arrival on the ground in Paris.

Would it be worth trying to get an appointment before I travel? Or would I be able to make an appointment only after I arrive in Paris?

Also, I would like to know what the difference is between a long-term visitor visa and a carte de séjour. And what is the difference between a carte de séjour visiteur and a carte de séjour residence? These are the questions that are causing me to hesitate.

1. Do any of these residency or visitor status change the holder’s right to travel into and out of France?

2. Fiscal residence – does the carte de séjour residence make one an automatic fiscal resident? And for the visiteur

3. Is the carte de sejour visiteur a prerequisite to applying later for the normal carte de sejour residence?

4. Applying for visiteur: is it likely that France would open to tourists before the consulate started accepting applications for the visiteur visa? Or would it be automatic that they would occur at the same time? If the consulate is not accepting visa applications, and France opens its borders to US citizens (I am now 65 and fully vaccinated) would I then just travel on my US passport and hope that I can apply for the visiteur status when I am on site in France?

Lean on me
I’ll be there
Whenever you need someone
To share in every prayer
In every dream
You’ve left somewhere
Till tomorrow
Will be just like it was when we were young
‘Cos tonight
I’m gonna take you where
I’ve never taken you before
Lean on me
I’m everywhere
Wherever you look I’ll be
Forever yours
The northern lights
The southern cross
I’ll give to you
Till tomorrow
Will be just like it was when we were young
‘Cos tonight
I’m gonna take you where
I’ve never taken you before
If you’re lonely
You know where you can find me
You know there’s no escape when you are on your own
And if you’re worried
And you can see your world slip through your fingers
I’ll reach out for you in my heart
There’s no more dancing in the dark.

I remember listening to the Moody Blues ever since my cousin Pierre brought their album A Question of Balance to our family home. That could also have been a pertinent title for today’s world. I want to promote a caring message, which is indispensable for a population desperately in need of healing.

Both in France and the USA, I sense a desire to lean on someone for protection. In some cases this desire is fulfilled, while other people feel they are left stranded, unattended. I can be completely cynical when it comes to political leaders, questioning the real motives behind what they say and do. During the weather crisis the state of Texas recently experienced, there were people you could lean on and people who were absent. In France right now, more and more professions feel totally abandoned, including musicians and performing artists in general. A foreigner new to France and feeling lost may be longing for a reassuring presence, a person who protects and guides, whom one can lean on and feel safe with. Too often, the quest for reassurance leads to horrendous situations, with such people falling victim to crooks.

PREFECTURE SCHEDULES AND LUCRATIVE APPOINTMENT TRAFFICKING
For several years there have been complaints about appointments with prefectures regarding immigration status being difficult to secure. The CODIV-19 pandemic has forced all prefectures to restructure their system for handling the public and issuing appointments. The system is quite complicated, for several reasons. Schedules are established at the last minute, so the first available appointment is often after the expiration date of the document needing renewal. Prefecture websites may work well with a particular browser one day but not the next. For example, I have stopped using Safari to get on these websites, as Firefox seems slightly more reliable.

Furthermore, appointments for some types of immigration status seem to be harder to secure than others, perhaps because the number of people trying exceeds the website capacity. People working at the Paris prefecture acknowledge that this is the case. Someone determined to get through may need to block a couple of hours for the task.

Beyond these issues, the current design of the system has led to a particular situation that often makes it impossible for an individual to get an appointment. An article in Le Monde explains that well-informed crooks snatch all available appointments as they are released. Then they sell them to individuals. Undocumented aliens (sans-papiers) may be especially vulnerable; under French law, some of them have the right to submit a request for a legal stay in France if they meet strict guidelines. They may not have the hours it takes to get an appointment, or they lack access to a computer, and so on. Of course, the crooks offer their services to anyone who cannot get an appointment any other way.

In my July-August 2019 issue, titled Father & Son, I wrote about a similar criminal scheme. Such situations make me really angry. I help people who fully qualify for procedures at the prefecture. They often spend about six months trying to get an appointment before giving up and paying for one. I strongly condemn the crooks who steal appointments to sell. And yet I fully understand that some foreigners feel they have no choice but to use such a scheme, given their risk of being caught by police – especially now, with a pandemic curfew being strictly enforced and people often working odd hours. Getting a legal stay sooner rather than later is critical for such people.

A full translation of the Le Monde article is attached, in hopes that the information will circulate as much as possible. Here is the link to the original article published on February 13th 2021: 
www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2021/02/13/titres-de-sejour-le-trafic-lucratif-des-rendez-vous_6069858_3224.html

Lucrative-appointment-trafficking-translation-PB.doc

URSSAF AND THE TAX OFFICE INCREASINGLY SHARE INFORMATION
The French and US tax systems are so different it can be difficult to explain to Americans how the French one works.

I will not go into the history of the French social system that was set up after WWII, with endless variations on health coverage and retirement per profession. President Macron has pushed a general policy of unifying the retirement program, which has led to violent demonstrations in the streets of Paris for the last three years or so.

Retired foreigners living in France saw one change quite vividly, as it affected them directly. When covered by the public system in the old days with theCouverture Maladie Universelle (CMU), the insured person would file an annual declaration with URSSAF so the 8% premium on worldwide income could be calculated.

In 2016, the Protection Universelle Maladie (PUMA) was set up to replace the CMU. One of the most problematic differences with the old system was that URSSAF now gets its information from the tax office to calculate the 8% premium. The way it was calculated also changed, which resulted in a difficult situation for many foreigners living in France.

It is a huge oversimplification, but I tell my clients that the centre des impôts is like the IRS and URSSAF is like the Social Security Administration. They are always amazed, as they are used to seeing the two American organizations working together, while their French equivalents pretty much ignored each other until recently – and that was better than the old days, when they distrusted each other to the point of never sharing information

A milestone will soon be reached in this regard. In May 2021, when it is time to declare income in France, self-employed people will only declare their income once, to the tax office. Starting with 2020 revenue, URSSAF will get the information from the tax office and there will no longer be any need to make two declarations. In short, the Déclaration Sociale des Indépendants (DSI) is no longer needed.

A recent URSSAF statement says: “A partir de cette année, vous n’aurez plus qu’une seule déclaration à faire pour la déclaration de vos revenus 2020 sur impots.gouv.fr. C’est cette déclaration unique qui sera utilisée pour le calcul de vos cotisations et contributions sociales personnelles et de votre impôt sur le revenu.”

Here is a translation of the complete press release:
“From this year, you will have only one declaration to make to declare your 2020 income on impots.gouv.fr. This single declaration will be used to calculate your personal social contributions and your income tax. The income that serves as the basis for personal social contributions will be entered directly in your personal income tax return (declaration No. 2042). It will be supplemented by a specific “social” component. In the 2020 income statement, specific sections have been provided to allow you to declare your eligibility for contribution reductions set up in the context of the health crisis (first period of health emergency in spring 2020 and second period of health emergency in autumn 2020). Once your tax return has been validated, the necessary elements will be sent automatically by the tax administration to your Urssaf or Cgss. As in previous years, upon receipt of the elements of your 2020 tax return, your Urssaf or Cgss will adjust your 2021 provisional contributions and regularize your final 2020 contributions. It will also send you a payment schedule update, which will take into account the exemption from contributions under the reduction mechanisms put in place in the context of the health crisis, if you are eligible. Urssaf or Cgss remains your contact for the management and payment of your personal social contributions.”

WIDESPREAD USE OF TEXT MESSAGES FOR SECURITY 
I remember when my bank first added a second level of security for access to accounts online – issuing a payment, transferring money – by sending a text message to my cellphone so I could be identified a second time. I particularly like this feature when I make purchases on a website, as it reduces the chance of fraud. It might make sense to force as many merchants as possible to include this feature on their sites. I fully understand that this is as much an issue with the bank as it is with the merchant, except the bank has an interest in limiting fraud, which costs it money.

Many merchant sites now also have this feature to enter the site if you have a personal account with them. It would be an exaggeration to say it is becoming a standard feature, but it feels like it is nearly one. Maybe I will get used to it someday, or manufacturers will find a way to have the computer and phone talk to each other automatically – who knows?

Recently this mundane procedure took on epic proportions because of a last-minute change of policy and COVID-19 preventing people from traveling. One of my clients was on a mission in Eastern Europe. The COVID-19 pandemic caused the stay to be extended for many months past the client’s scheduled return to France. This client, like several of my American clients, does not have a French cellphone, as their American phones can be used worldwide. Pretty much overnight, their bank added the text security feature for access to their accounts. This meant the client had to buy a French phone or at least a SIM card, and give the French number to the bank.

To make a long, complicated story shorter, about this client, I bought a pay-per-use SIM card and activated the number so any phone could use it. Then I mailed the SIM card across most of Europe so the client could put it in his phone when connecting with the bank. Registering the phone number with the bank was the true challenge, but finally it got done. The final episode would be laughable if it had not been a serious problem. My client needed printed bank statements, and he could not have access to them due to some technical glitch with the SIM card. His CPA needed them to prepare tax declarations. The bank demanded an original signature on a letter requesting that the statements be printed, and charged a hefty price for this service. The last straw was that it would only send them to the client’s Paris address. Thus I had to pick up that letter, scan the documents and send them to the client. Some rules to safeguard clients’ interests take us back a century!

Another bank offered a different solution to the cellphone problem. It agreed to send the security text messages to a US phone number, for an extra charge of $5 a month. The client concerned has a French cellphone but it does not receive text messages from France. I can see this becoming a serious problem for clients who are outside France most of the time, and the many who are stuck abroad because of the pandemic.

As my client said to me, “with the continued need to use a double verification process for banking and other accounts, this might be worth mentioning … in one of your next columns. Not everyone who does banking in France has a French phone and can receive text messages from other countries without adding this feature to their accounts. Granted it is $5 extra per month but worth it.”

UPDATE ABOUT THE FRENCH SANITARY STATE OF EMERGENCY
Note that the state of emergency due to the pandemic has been extended until June 1st: “Face à l’aggravation de la propagation de l’épidémie de Covid-19, l’état d’urgence sanitaire en place depuis le 17 octobre 2020 est prolongé jusqu’au 1er juin 2021 inclus. Initialement, il devait prendre fin le 16 février 2021. La loi prorogeant l’état d’urgence sanitaire est parue au Journal officiel le 16 février 2021.

(Faced with the worsening spread of the Covid-19 epidemic, the health state of emergency in place since October 17th, 2020 has been extended until June 1st, 2021, inclusive. Initially, it was to end on February 16th, 2021. The law extending the health state of emergency was published in the Journal officiel on February 16th, 2021.

FOREIGN RENTAL INCOME DECLARED IN FRANCE
Paris being one of the touristic hubs of the world, there are numerous foreigners owning apartments here and renting them through Airbnb and similar organizations. I have referred to this many times in past columns: rental income earned in France is declared and taxed in France even when the owner is not a French fiscal resident. It is then declared to the IRS as income already taxed.

One of my clients, however, has properties she rents in the USA and declares in France as income already taxed. She lives and files in France as a French fiscal resident. She recently received a letter from URSSAF that stunned me. It took me some time to understand what had happened.

The letter asked for her SIRET number, a French ID number for a person running a business. My client is retired, holds a visitor’s carte de séjour and has never registered a business in France. The request had to have originated somehow with the French administration. My client’s American rental income had surged last year, to the point that it went over the threshold that would force this type of registration if the rentals were in France. The system must have undergone a serious malfunction, taking the American income as French, and acted accordingly. Once identified, the problem was easy to fix.

I am more familiar with a different computer bug, whereby the French tax office tries to collect the CSG-CRDS taxes on American income declared in France. That bug was identified well over 10 years ago and is now rare. I still see it, but much less frequently.

CESC PARIS HAS INVITED ME TO SPEAK ON MARCH 1st VIA ZOOM
The Council for the English Speaking Community in Paris (CESC Paris) first invited me to speak in September 2003. Then and now the topic is “Non-profits in France.” I will cover the legal and practical issues that non-profits [often] encounter. My experience as a member of several non-profits, including holding the post of vice-president for one of them, adds first-hand knowledge to my training as a juriste droit économique and to what I have learned while advising non-profits as part of my consulting activity.

Here is the announcement the CESC put out:
Dear CESC Paris Community,
Are you the head of a non-profit association? Our guest speaker will be Jean Taquet and our next meeting is going to focus on the loi 1901, questions about running non-profit associations and some of the current or ongoing issues we are experiencing due to the fallout from Covid 19 pandemic. We won’t be able to answer all your questions, but the idea is to gauge areas of interest and concern and then organize further discussions with more experts within and outside of the CESC community to help facilitate these discussions in the coming weeks and months.

MY BUSINESS HAS A NEW FACEBOOK PAGE
Over the holidays, my assistant, Sarah, took an interesting initiative and created a new Facebook page. It is a good move for her, since she and I both moderate it. She can show off her expertise and her ability to give good advice and clearly explain solutions. She does this in French, leaving the queries in English to me.

Since I am already active in a few Facebook groups and my website is my main showcase, I did not feel I needed such a page. On the other hand, it should no doubt benefit her sooner than later.

You are welcome to join:
https://www.facebook.com/rattachement

SUMMER VACATION: THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED JULY 9th to AUGUST 23rd
The office will be closed for a month and a half, starting Friday, July 9th, and reopening on Monday, August 23rd. As always, I will be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters. My service of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed.

Best regards,

QUESTION

ASKING FOR A VISA DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

There appears to be much discrepancy between VFS Global and the Washington DC embassy regarding requests for the passeport talent visa. This status appears to be the only way to obtain a real immigration visa that is renewable, and valid up to four years, with work permits from the get-go. VFS says one thing; the embassy says something different. For example, many individuals who are choosing between all the “flavors” of passeport talent might be self-employed, working as authors, artists, sometimes with a national or international reputation in a specialized field, and often holding high-level degrees, diplomas, etc. Yet it appears that the embassy wants French contracts, French employment by French companies with French clients, etc. If you do not have any of these, you can apply for a long-term visitor visa… but this visa is not currently available due to COVID restrictions. On the other hand, VFS says that those who can prove sufficient funding through forms, documents, etc. and who are working on a project that benefits France in some way, can apply for the passeport talent.
What happens if your visa is rejected? All that work and time preparing your move – selling cars, furniture, looking for lodging in a country that appears to have an incoherent visa policy. If France is serious about accepting talented folks to improve the community, then perhaps the administration needs to take these passeport talents visas seriously and get to work vastly improving their horrendous ‘system’.

QUESTION

WHAT DOES A PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT COVER?

I moved here for my French fiancé, and in doing so, I gave up a very lucrative career. My fiancé owns a company and some real estate in France. His real estate company owns the home in which we plan to live in after the marriage. He wants me to sign a marriage contract stating that all property before and after the marriage remains separated. I am not in agreement after giving up a really well-paid job to relocate and I know I will not be able to earn nearly as much in France without speaking the language.
My fiancé owns 99% of real estate company; the other 1% belongs to his mother. Is there a way to write up a contract to have equal “shares” of our future family home? Can we transfer the real estate company in part into my name to avoid having to purchase shares?
Is there a way to edit the marriage contract to say that I would not get any of his principal business but just half of the family home? Can any of the three types of marriage contracts in French be adjusted or they are straight boilerplate documents with unchangeable terms?
My next question is whether it would be possible to draft a separate document that would provide some sort of financial security – an agreement to get a sum of money in case of divorce or the transfer of half the family home in spite of the fact that it is owned by the company rather than by my fiancé – simply for investing sweat equity in building a family with him and making improvements towards the family home, etc.

“The Winner Takes It All” is a song by the Swedish pop group ABBA, the first single from its Super Trouper album, released on July 21st 1980. My faithful readers might be surprised by this choice, as I am not a real fan of this band with its too often sugary lyrics and disco music.

I like this song quite a lot as it is about the end of a romance. I hear the frustration and pain of the betrayed woman; she lost everything and tried to stay civil about it, and I am not sure the man reacts in the same well-mannered way.

This title (more than the lyrics, I admit) reminds me of an incident that I felt did not get as much media coverage as it deserved. In early May, US Attorney General William Barr was asked by Catherine Herridge of CBS, “When history looks back on this decision, how do you think it will be written?”

“Well,” he replied, “history is written by the winners, so it largely depends on who’s writing the history.”

Sure, in politics it too frequently feels as if the winner takes it all, leaving virtually nothing to the other side. But in a democratic system, the fact that one party wins is not supposed to prevent it from governing for the wellbeing of the entire nation. According to the rules of democracy, the winners cannot take everything, and there are checks and balances to ensure that the minority has sufficient influence so that, in an ideal world, the needs and aspirations of the entire nation are taken into consideration. The USA has for centuries been a model of this because of the way the founding fathers structured its democratic system, with three equal branches of government with the power to rule and to prevent the other branches from becoming too powerful.

Many people describe the policy that is currently being implemented in the USA as an autocratic evolution of the way the current American president and his government rule the country. In other countries, some people see a similar trend in their own government. Indeed many French people think the current president is moving dangerously towards a more autocratic regime.

PREFECTURES ARE REOPENING AT THEIR OWN PACE, AND THE VALIDITY OF THE SIX-MONTH IMMIGRATION ID EXTENSION IS MISUNDERSTOOD
The French administration is trying to do a good job reopening public services, but when it comes to prefectures and their schedules, the task is enormous and the result confusing, frustrating and highly unreliable. This is in spite of the considerable efforts of the employees.

Since May 11th, prefectures have started to get ready to receive the public and resume some of their activities, although each one seems to have a different schedule.

There are four distinct situations that must be addressed, each requiring different actions:
1 – An appointment was made to pick up the carte de séjour, but then the prefecture shut down. Some prefectures have started to give new appointments to pick up these cards.

2 – The carte de séjour should be ready by now but the prefecture had not issued an appointment before lockdown. Since the applicant cannot be certain that the card is ready to be picked up, they must wait to receive the date and time of the appointment.

3 – The titre de séjour (usually the carte de séjour) needed to be renewed and expired during lockdown. The prefecture needs to arrange for the appointment to be made in a special way, as the standard page of the website will not allow it to be done after the day of expiration.

4 – The titre de séjour needs to be renewed and will expire soon. The prefecture needs to reopen the standard website so that people can make appointments. I am pretty sure the appointments will be much later this year.

The situation that poses the most problems is the third one, as we do not yet know how it will be addressed.

The first cases that need to be discussed involve cartes de séjour, récépissés, visas, autorisations provisoires de séjour and so on that had their validity extended for at least six months. When the system reopens, all those documents will be considered valid and procedures will resume as usual – but only for people who were in France when their immigration status expired; the extension does not apply for people who got stuck out of the country. Therefore, it is extremely important to come back before the immigration status expires. Remember, French citizens and immigrants to France have the right to travel back to France at any time, even when the borders are closed. Anyone in that situation needs to fill out the document called attestation de déplacement international dérogatoire vers la France métropolitaine.

While France’s borders remain shut, it is not possible to fly back to France with just an American passport. For people stuck abroad whose immigration status expired during lockdown, the solution is to ask at a French consulate for a visa de retour allowing you to come back. This document is issued to French residents who can prove they maintained their residency in France but exceptional situations prevented them from traveling. It is supposed to be issued quickly and it does not require much paperwork. But the consulate checks with the prefecture about the applicant’s immigration status, so the situation had better be clear. Ideally, an appointment to renew has been secured, so the intention to stay in France is clearly documented. If that is not the case, the intent to continue residing in France can be more difficult to prove.

This link can be used if you have an appointment to pick up the carte de séjour at the Paris prefecture and it was shut on that date: www.demarches-simplifiees.fr/commencer/prefecture-de-police-de-paris-rendez-vous-remise-d.

Most prefectures for which I have information state that they will be ready to welcome the public on June 15th, but not for all procedures, and with a new way of receiving the public. The only thing that seems to be standard is that appointment times will be strictly adhered to, with a 15-to 30-minute window to enter. This means the process should be quite lean, without the large crowds we are used to. It should also do away with the usual long waits.

I strongly advise people to check their prefecture’s website regularly so they can act right away. Currently the Parisian prefecture is sending new appointments scheduled in mid-July by postal mail to the people who had appointments in Mid-March. This gives some vague indication as to when one can expect to have the appointment rescheduled. As for people who need to schedule an appointment, I do not know when this will be possible and, it could be as late as January 2021 even if one manages to get in the system shortly after it reopens. If so, this delay will create more problems for many people.

THE PARIS PREFECTURE HAS COME UP WITH AN UNPRECEDENTED SOLUTION: SENDING CARTES DE SEJOUR BY MAIL
As many activities of the prefecture are linked to national security, there is a permanent desire for control and scrutiny to make sure no one is trying to cheat. That explains why, during the issuance and renewal of immigration status, there are two times when the foreigner must be present: to submit the request and to pick up the physical ID. Few people are aware of the abuse of cartes de séjour common in African communities in France. An undocumented foreigner pays someone who is in France legally to use theircarte de séjour to get a job. All the pay slips and credits associated with receiving a salary in France go to the legal holder of the card, but it allows the person illegally in France to earn a living.

Early in May I started hearing that the prefecture would mail out cartes de séjour to foreigners. This solution has several advantages, given COVID-19 and the prefecture’s three-month backlog. The prefecture sends out the usual text message saying that the card is ready, but instead of giving a date and a time to come and pick it up, it says either Votre titre de séjour xxxxxxxx disponible en pref. taxe à payer : 0000 eur. rdv sur site internet pref pol/ressortissants étrangers/envoi postal des titres or the same message with0225 eur, depending on whether a fee is owed. The recipient must go through a couple of clearance steps to make sure the right person is activating the account. The final step is to confirm the mailing address. Then thecarte de séjour is sent by registered mail.

This shows that the prefecture is facing unbelievable chaos if it is willing to give up its sacrosanct double presence policy and trust the postal system to check the recipient’s identity. It also shows the ingenuity of the French administration, coming up with an alternative solution that works. I would not be surprised if it is retained, even when everything falls back into place once the pandemic is truly over.

The website is the one mentioned earlier: www.demarches-simplifiees.fr/commencer/prefecture-de-police-de-paris-rendez-vous-remise-d.

A ZOOM Q&A WEBINAR FOR EXPATS OCCURRED ON MAY 7th
In an event sponsored by the Facebook forum American Expats in Paris, the Franco-American lawyer Daniel Tostado and I held a webinar to answer immigration questions. Daniel came up with the idea and we worked on the format. He is my second-in-command for my volunteer activity at the American Church in Paris and this was an attempt to do something for the community, as the activity stopped when the church closed on March 14th.

Chris Mann, a member of our church running a computer ministry, monitored the Zoom session, making sure we could address the issues in an orderly fashion and manage the waiting room. It did not come close to replacing the sessions at the church, but it was an attempt to reach out and we had decent turnout.

The topics covered were visas, residency permits and the like, appointments, extensions, closures, reopenings, and our best speculation as to how the French government would proceed in the months to come. The webinar was recorded and we insisted it be made available to the public. Since it was done during lockdown I can be seen with a sizable beard, which I never wear when my office is open. So, thanks to Chris Mann, it is now on YouTube and my reputation for good grooming could be challenged!

THE INTERNET CONNECTS THE WORLD AND DEHUMANIZES THE SOUL
After a few months of lockdown, many researchers have started to study the effects of the confinement (forced to stay at home) on people. The findings include significant increases in domestic violence and divorces. We have also seen petty as well as generous action and behavior. So much has been said on this subject and there is bound to be much more to come, but I would like to share an exchange that highlighted an interesting aspect of what was happening.

After 29 years as part of the American Church in Paris congregation, we have seen several pastors come and go. My family has stayed in contact with some of them, even 20 years later. The following was an exchange with one of them.

PASTOR:
My 75th birthday was May 4, and E. organized a Zoom meeting with M. and A. and kids. M.’s daughter S. said something that really struck us all: “Funny, we are now living a huge worldwide event that someday in the future will be in the history books and studied by children and adults in school. But we’re actually LIVING this future to-be-studied event right now!” A simple but profound perspective, we thought.

ME:
Indeed, there are so many layers in her comment.
1 – It is true that we are connecting with the world and it does not take much to feel close to one another, when we are physically far apart.

2 – For now – and I believe this will never change – a human being is made of a body and therefore needs to have the presence of another person. In the past generations, people prioritized those who shared their lives. Other people were important as well; our grandparents, parents and I, myself, had significant epistolary exchanges which sometimes led to marriages. In those days, the methods of communication were limited to visits, snailmail, and, more recently, phone calls. The existence of internet should not change this basic principle; the people present with you should have your priority because they share your life, and the others are probably important but fit in between those who are present with you.

3 – I use social media more and more and I am happy it exists. Facebook has become a tool I communicate with that helps me remember birthdays and where I advise for free on several francophone and anglophone forums. I believe that on some occasions I have managed to make a difference in people’s lives with some good advice. It is also a marketing tool: People see what I answer and contact me later. I welcome this communal aspect of social media. But it can also be a tool used to harm others, enabling some people to destroy reputations and sometimes lives, with rumors.

4 – Lockdown has exacerbated the absurd and way too common situation where people constantly use their phones to publish things to a wide, anonymous audience while sitting with friends, loved ones or family members. The sad reality is that fake Facebook friends can become so important that the real loved ones who are physically close are ignored. How often do we see gatherings where everybody is on their phone as if they were alone in the room? This is wrong. The person you are with should have your main and ideally undivided attention.

***********

This evolution scares me, even if the pandemic may have made people aware that a screen does not bring a body, just an image. That leads me to the topic of working remotely, which surged enormously in France and became widely used in the USA and many other countries. In the past few months I have conducted business meetings with clients via Skype, Zoom and other platforms. Since it was the only way, I was happy to do it, but I miss the personal aspect of such exchanges.

A personal presence clearly changes the dynamic, and I am sensitive to it. Many people complain about feeling uneasy during Zoom meetings. After taking part in a few of them, I got used to it, and Zoom offers a real ability to communicate and exchange. Yet no matter how productive the meetings were, I always came out of them feeling a kind of dryness and coldness that was unrelated to the people I was with but existed because the communication was through a screen.

Some people say that once they got used to it, it stopped bothering them. But that is exactly my point: We are getting used to dehumanization. Having all those internet tools saved many businesses, allowing employees and small business owners to continue to work, and I rejoice that it was possible. At the same time, we saw people getting used to being locked in and enjoying the slower pace, and having more family life. They suddenly had more time for their spouses and children. They tried, sometimes clumsily, to manage work the best they could while putting their priority on the people they lived with. They did not complain much about having to stay inside their home. We also saw people who after one month or less became violent or depressed because they were stuck, and they felt stuck, and social media was not enough.

Of course, there are much bigger problems stemming from the pandemic, including the death toll, rising unemployment and a staggering number of bankruptcies. As is often the case, I like looking at what could be seen as an insignificant detail. I find that it is not.

INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING FOR CLEANERS, TUTORS, ETC.
Since January 1st 2019, all French employers have had to withhold the amount of money owed for income tax on salaries paid monthly. But one category of employers could not really do that the way the system was initially set up: private individuals employing people at home as tutors for their children, cleaners, nannies and so on. These employers are not equipped to calculate and pay the social charges related to the salary paid.

The program through which such workers are paid, called chèque emploi service universel (CESU), has existed for about 17 years. The French administration, in the form of the URSSAF branch in the city of Saint-Etienne, calculates the amount of social charges owed by the employer and takes that money from the employer’s bank account at the end of the month. That office was not ready to add the tax calculation when all other employers were forced to do it. The government overlooked this problem, and URSSAF was not ready to implement the policy. Later another question was raised: Should the withholding be done on the employer’s bank account or the employee’s?

Finally, in January 2020 (although employers were not informed until about two months later), the amount paid by the employer at the end of the month began including the estimated income tax owed. The form confirming the declaration done online shows three amounts: net salary earned by the employee, amount of income tax estimated, and amount the employer pays the employee before the income tax is taken off. Nearly the same situation exists for people paid through Pajemploi, which is for nannies and other childcare.

While implementing the policy, URSSAF created two new services, called Cesu+ and Pajemploi+. The employer can pay the employee by check, wire transfer, cash, PayPal and maybe more. There are some restrictions as to how much a cash payment can be. With the “plus” service, URSSAF can transfer the net salary directly from the employer’s bank account into the employee’s designated bank account, with prior approval of the employer.

https://www.lemonde.fr/argent/article/2020/01/09/particulier-employeur-et-prelevement-a-la-source-mode-d-emploi_6025254_1657007.html

INFORMATION THAT MUST BE GIVEN TO THE BUYER OF AN APARTMENT IN FRANCE
On several occasions, I have mentioned that notaires are obliged to inform both buyer and seller of all consequences of a property purchase. The rights and obligations linked to a property are passed from seller to buyer when the closing is signed. The notaire has a duty to control and therefore inform, which covers many issues. The most obvious is that the seller is the lawful owner and that the title is clear so it is safe to buy the property and live there. Another mission is to make sure the buyer has all the information needed to make the right decision and buy the place for the right price. Sometimes the amount paid to the seller differs from the purchase price if a known liability is attached to the property.

The obligation to repay a loan backed up by a mortgage is obvious, and thenotaire rarely neglects this information. But certain more insidious issues are likely to be overlooked by both the notaire and the buyer. One common concealed liability is a lawsuit pending when the property changes hands. If a suit is underway in the middle of the procedure, it is virtually impossible to know the outcome until the court rules. This issue is usually downplayed or ignored because most such cases deal with unpaid condominium charges. In these lawsuits, the unknown costs include the amount of legal fees the co-owners will have to pay, and when the court case will end.

However, when there is a lawsuit concerning matters such as the firing of thegardienne, dealing with a contractor accused of bad construction work, or settling with the city regarding cleaning and maintenance of the facade, the outcome can end up costing the co-owners a lot of money, so it is imperative for the buyer to be properly informed of the risk, and escrow is virtually impossible since the amount per apartment will not be known until the case is settled.

Information of this type must be included in a document called état daté, which the property manager (syndic) issues on request of the notaire. It summarizes all amounts owed by the seller, including unpaid charges and any amount linked to work already voted but not yet paid for. Each is clearly identified, and such items rarely cause problems. The buyer understands that once a contractor starts working, the final cost might be lower or higher than what was voted during the general meeting but what counts is the motion that has been voted.

The état daté must also list all current lawsuits. A ruling by the French Supreme Court, the Cour de Cassation, on June 20th 2019 addresses this issue. A syndic stated in the document that there were issues with the underground parking pending in a court case. Much later the buyer found out that the issues were linked to grossly defective ventilation, in the parking lot as well as in the staircases and common areas, creating a serious health hazard for residents. The syndic claimed the buyer was informed of the existence of the lawsuit, but was found guilty of misrepresentation.

I strongly advise anyone buying an apartment in France to carefully read all minutes of three or more recent annual general meetings and make sure they understand every motion voted on. If necessary, investigate why the motions were on the agenda and voted on. Ideally, you should also read the notification of each general meetings (convocation à l’assemblée générale), as these have much more information than the minutes. In the court case mentioned above, the minutes simply noted approval of a motion to take the contractor to court, but the pre-meeting notification would have included the letter from the co-owners’ lawyer explaining what the case was about, probably along with the expert’s memo listing the problems, and so on – enough information to show much better what was at stake. By law, the seller is only obliged to give the minutes of the three most recent general meetings. This is a great improvement, compared to before, but this above-mentioned court case shows its limits.

For more information on the état date, see www.lemonde.fr/argent/article/2020/03/21/copropriete-quand-l-acheteur-n-est-pas-informe-des-procedures-judiciaires-en-cours_6033918_1657007.html

SUMMER VACATION: THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED JULY 17th to AUGUST 24th 
The office will be closed for one month, starting Friday, July 19th, and will reopen on Monday, August 24th. As always, I will be reachable by e-mail for emergencies and important matters. My service of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed.

MY MINOR FEES WILL INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2020
Handling mail in my office: 40 euros per month
Handling mail received at my home: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-the-office meetings: 60 euros which corresponds to less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend and during national French holidays and vacations: 30%.

Best regards,

QUESTION

PROOF OF ADDRESS FOR THE PREFECTURE

In light of the Paris citywide lockdown, will my June visa interview at the prefecture still be on schedule? I was in Paris two weeks before the shutdown, looking for an apartment to rent. But unfortunately, I left before I could secure one, for fear of being locked down in France. So I came back home to the US early, and hope that I can return to Paris again soon. If I cannot find a suitable apartment to rent long term, is it ok to rent one for, say, 3-6 months, just to provide an address for the visa application?

QUESTION

CAN A PREFECTURE LIST BE TRUSTED?

I wanted to thank you for your monthly comments. I always find them informative and, at times, thought-provoking. In your current notice I did find an item where I wanted to offer a comment. Regarding taxes, it is probably worth noting that while there may be no tax due if there were no earnings in France, social charges (CSG/CRDS) may still be assessed, even if the person filing the taxes is not receiving assurance maladie. However, once that is noted, there is the golden lining, so to speak, of now being able to claim the social charges as a US tax credit.

Regarding the note about tax filing being requisite for a 10-year carte de résident, there are many reports of people having been required to show proof of tax filing, but in our own case, we were never asked to provide evidence of tax filing at any point, from the original visa de longue séjour to the carte de résident. Also, the official information pages do not list tax filings as a requirement.

It was obvious to my wife and me that we received better than average treatment during all of our contacts with the French consulate in the US, and at the prefecture here in France. However, I credit some of that preferred treatment to the way we presented ourselves: We spoke only French, we were relaxed, calm, in good humor, we never challenged anything, and where there were questions or issues, we always asked for help and advice.

However, as to the list of detailed documents, I can say that, at least in département 06, there is no published requirement to show the avis d’imposition sur les revenus. Here is a link to the page for renewal of a carte de séjour temporaire. I chose this option since it would assume being present in France for over a year.

http://06.accueil-etrangers.gouv.fr/demande-de-titre-de-sejour/vous-etes-ressortissant-e-non-europeen-ne/vous-etes-ressortissant-e-de-pays-tiers-non-algerien-ne/vous-etes-en-france-vous-avez-deja-un-titre-de-sejour/vous-souhaitez-obtenir-son-renouvellement/pour-l-obtention-d-une-carte-de-sejour-temporaire/article/pour-l-obtention-d-une-carte-de-sejour-temporaire.

From Wikipedia:
““Money for Nothing” is a single by British rock band Dire Straits, taken from their 1985 studio albumBrothers in Arms. The song’s lyrics are written from the point of view of two working-class men watching music videos and commenting on what they see.”

So many things are happening, especially in the USA, most likely because it is a federal country and different states have very different policies and they are dealing with the pandemic in very different ways.

As far back as I can remember, the US government has never distributed cash in this way because of an economic crisis.

Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which the president signed into law on March 27th. This was a first; it was a big deal and was widely commented on in the media and in Congress. Many conservatives strongly criticized it. The argument that struck me the most, as a Frenchman, was that it was dangerous, inappropriate, maybe even counterproductive to give out large sums of money just like that because times are hard. For American conservatives, it went against fundamental American values.

There were cash payments (technically, tax credits) for individuals and families. Essentially, an individual earning less than $75,000 a year receives $1,200, and a couple earning less than $150,000 a year receives $2,400. Families also receive $500 per child. Individuals and families making more than that receive reduced amounts, up to certain thresholds. Individuals making more than $99,000 and married couples making more than $198,000 receive no cash payment.

The conservatives see welfare, which includes distributing food stamps and unemployment benefits, as a burden on society. At the same time, they argue for a legal right to use the tax code to one’s benefit.

The theme I heard was that if the federal government gives out too much money and for too long, it will weaken the American spirit of entrepreneurship and the self-made man.

I think in the long run it is cheaper to let the businesses of the country remain open. The best way to do that in an extreme crisis is to make sure poor and middle-class people have enough money to pay for their housing, food and transportation – in other words, the basic necessities of life. A family that is evicted, and therefore homeless, does not pay rent to anyone. A repossessed car sitting in a parking lot does not use gas and does not need parts and oil changes. Many other examples, with details that in the course of a normal life we all take for granted, could illustrate my point.

In September 2009, I raised a similar issue about President Obama’s bailout plan, under the title

HOW MUCH IS A CLUNKER WORTH? 
I was again discussing the type of help being offered. The overall amount was considerably less and targeted only the big three American car manufacturers. Here is what I wrote then:

“On one hand, it is clear that subsidies always distort the market and therefore are unfair by their very nature for one reason or another. Furthermore, the negative effects of these subsidies are visible as soon as the programs end because new cars will not sell as well and the sizable drop in sales will hurt the car industry. …
The use of the car is so widespread in the USA and the automobile industry has such an impact on the global economy that choosing this controversial way of spending public money is probably the lesser of two evils. Anything that stops or limits the global recession helps the country. Is there a better way to help the American economy? Maybe, but I have no knowledge of anything better. All in all, good news is coming from the employment front and people have started to say that maybe the crisis will soon be over. Can one be related to another? Again some experts disagree about this. What I noticed was that the American nation is starting to believe that the end of the tunnel is near and this is undoubtedly excellent news for everybody, including the rest of the world.”

Today I would like to make two very different points. The first is about the French system of subsidies to individuals regardless of the pandemic. Most of the payments are issued by the Caisses d’Allocation Familiales (CAF), a program that originally provided families with financial support during pregnancy and the first three months of a child’s life. The CAF now has 18 programs dealing with four major situations:

• Petite enfance – infancy
• Enfance et jeunesse – childhood and youth
• Logement et cadre de vie – housing and living conditions
• Solidarité et insertion – solidarity and economic integration

In 2017, the CAF provided payments totaling 73.2 billion euros. Almost half the French population receives some subsidy from the CAF. The French as a nation recognize the need to help certain categories of people. Culturally there is no stigma attached to receiving such subsidies, especially payments other than theRevenu de Solidarité Active, (R.S.A.), which is the equivalent of income assistance. Consequently, the decision to have a stimulus plan somewhat similar to the US one was not criticized, and the French administration knows exactly how to do this. Furthermore, because France has universal health coverage, requirements to wear a mask, get tested or go to a hospital involve little cost to individuals and no one has to wonder how much it will cost, and whether the patient can pay or what services are covered.

My second point concerns the cost of the economy collapsing. There are always those who will criticize any government financial involvement in the private sector and in people’s lives. I understand and respect the fact that this makes perfect sense for a certain type of morals or ethics. The American Republican Party has long held such views. It also favored controlling and limiting public spending, which again makes total sense in that context.

Anyone who works in social services, either as a profession or with a non-profit organization, such as the Salvation Army, quickly realizes how much it costs a country to support people who become homeless and destitute. One consequence is that they are no longer consumers who can sustain the economy with their spending; they have no money because they have no jobs worth talking about. Within just a few days of being evicted, the average person who becomes homeless is broken so severely that it takes years to get them back into normal society. But people who keep their home and receive enough public money that they do not have to worry about being evicted can work on getting a job, sending applications or preparing to launch a new business. When the worst of the crisis is over, they are ready to get back to work regardless of what they do. In terms of just contributing to the IRS and Social Security, subsidizing part of the population for a short period costs relatively little, given how much they will contribute later on.

Thus there is no such thing as “money for nothing” in such situations. The money enables people to keep their dignity and their ability to work and contribute. Maybe instead of rehearsing financial and economic reasons to choose this or that policy, we should ask what it takes to treat a country’s population with respect and understanding of their needs. On several occasions, the US presidential campaign has brought up this issue as a topic of discussion.

Criticizing “Money for nothing” and stating “the state is infringing my constitutional right to freedom” are, to me, two sides of the same coin.

This opens up a new discussion in view of the pandemic that is sweeping the USA. Maybe it is time to put people’s lives first when political decisions are being made.

PREFECTURES REMAIN CLOSED; THE VALIDITY OF FRENCH IMMIGRATION IDs IS EXTENDED FOR SIX MONTHS
All prefectures in France have been closed since March 17th. Cartes de séjour, récépissés, visas,autorisations provisoires de séjour (APS) and so on that expired or will expire since then have had their validity extended for at least six months. When the system reopens, all those expired documents will be considered valid and procedures will resume as usual.

The extension went into effect on April 22nd in application of Article 16 of the emergency law dealing with the Covid 19 epidemic. So far it concerns all of the following documents that expire(d) between March 16th and May 15th:

• long-stay visas
• residence permits (mainly cartes de séjour) except diplomatic ones
• carte de séjour RESE « Recherche d’Emploi / création d’Entreprise » previously called student APSAutorisations Provisoires de Séjour
• récépissés

OVERSTAYING THE SCHENGEN PERIOD BECAUSE OF THE VIRUS 
I have helped many US citizens who have overstayed the three months they are allowed to be in the Schengen area. They often get fined or have to miss their plane and therefore get stuck for a while in another Schengen country. French officials, especially the Charles de Gaulle Airport police, have always given lenient treatment to US citizens who overstay, even several times. I am sure this leniency will continue in May, as the crisis situation evolves both in France and in destination countries.

Since airlines cancelled almost all flights because so many countries, including France, shut their borders, foreigners with tourist status, whether a short-term visa or visa-free entry, often could not leave France on time. For some, overstaying would have few effects, as mentioned above. But others could run the risk of serious consequences, such as criminal prosecution and being banned from re-entering France for several years.

To avoid this, the Paris prefecture has created an email address where people can ask for an official document a few days before their legal stay ends, allowing them to legally leave France at the end of the lockdown (note that this is specific to the Paris prefecture). The request, sent to pp-dpg-sdaeprolongationvisa@interieur.gouv.fr, must include scans of the following documents:

• the ID page of the passport and the page that was stamped upon entering France
• if applicable, the C tourist visa issued by a French consulate, expiring in less than a week
• proof of accommodation in Paris (e.g. copy of hotel reception certificate or affidavit of lodging –attestation d’accueil)
• proof of your difficulty in returning to your country of origin.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: THE TIME TO DECLARE HAS BEGUN
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would like to remind everybody that paper versions of the 2019 income declaration must be filed in France by June 12th 2020 midnight. The declaration forms are available at www.impots.gouv.fr. You can file your declaration on the same website, unless it is your first time, in which case you must file on paper. To file online, which has been possible since April 20th, you need your tax ID number and some access codes.

Note that if you file online, the deadline is later. The schedule depends on your postal code:

• départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on June 4th.
• départements 20 to 49 by June 8th.
• départements 50 or higher by June 11th.

An important reminder: If you are a French fiscal resident (i.e. if you hold a carte de séjour or an immigration visa validated with an OFII stamp, and comply with the requirements), you must declare your worldwide income to the French authorities even if you have no income in France and do not have the right to work in France. There is no penalty for neglecting to file, but not meeting this obligation is illegal and can have consequences.

You are a French fiscal resident if you: 

• stay in France 183 days in a calendar year, whether you have legal immigration status or not
• have immediate family members (spouse and/or minor children) living in France
• have a French employer
• run a French business, even something like tutoring schoolchildren in English.

Current government-sponsored advertising campaigns refer to paper forms as thing of the past. For now, declaring electronically gives you an extension of a few weeks.

Some foreigners neglect to declare their worldwide income to France. Some of them hold a student immigration status, and think that this obligation does not apply to them. Some of them hold the ‘visiteur’ immigration status and think that the prohibition to work included in this status, prevents them from declaring to the French tax office. After all, why declare your income to France when you are prohibited from earning money in France? When they realize their mistake, they wish to file for the last three years as the statute of limitations for this kind of fiscal issue allows it.

What infuriates me is that I have recently seen a trend in which tax offices in the Paris region systematically refuse declarations that they considered too old. Thus, in 2020, one can declare income for 2019, 2018 and 2017. But many of my clients who have tried to declare three years at once have had the filing refused on the grounds thatvisiteur immigration status, even with proof of a stable long-term address in France, is not enough to be considered a fiscal resident. In one case, the tax inspector took up an entire A4 page detailing why such status could not be accepted for a single American man who had lived in France for a decade. The letter listed all the reasons this client did not fit in but purposefully “forgot” the criterion of staying physically in France for a minimum of 183 days. And yet declarations that are not filed late, even the first ones done on paper, go through the system and create no problem.

Keep in mind that to request a carte de résident, you have to have, among other things, proof of five years of fiscal residence, which requires the avis d’imposition sur le revenu.

HOW THE PANDEMIC AFFECTS SCHEDULING OF CO-OWNER GENERAL MEETINGS
The annual assemblée générale (general meeting) of a copropriété (property co-owners) must be held in order to vote on at least two things: the budget, and the amount the co-owners will pay; and the contract with the syndic (property management firm). Normally the meeting must occur no more than six months after the books are closed. As that generally takes place on December 31st, the meeting must be held by June 30th.

Because of the lockdown, however, many meetings could not be held, so a special regulation has been issued. Any meetings scheduled before March 14th should have been held and thus are not affected, but any meetings scheduled after that date will have been cancelled, and the new regulation applies. The syndic will not be allowed to call the meeting until after the government declares the health emergency over, allowing meetings again.

These two regulations, the ordonnance n° 2020-304 issued on March 25th 2020, then modified by the Ordonnance n° 2020-460 issued on April 22nd 2020, very exceptionally authorized these meetings to be held until the end of this year.

THE NAVIGO PASS WILL BE REIMBURSED IN MAY
A website will be launched in early May on which holders of the Navigo transportation pass, which costs 75.20 euros a month, can request reimbursement for April and the first part of May. The same will apply for the 37.60-euro senior and ImaginR student passes. Since most employers already pay half the cost of the Navigo, this will boost the spending power of many local residents. The reimbursement will also apply to teleworkers, employees on partial or complete unemployment, and self-employed people who have had to close their business.

www.service-public.fr/particuliers/actualites/A14010

GOVERNMENT HELP FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AND INDEPENDENTS 
As is often the case, the French system takes people’s real financial situation into consideration when deciding what assistance they receive for losses incurred because of the pandemic. This means that to obtain this financial help, independents and small business owners have to fil out a form documenting their financial loss.

Since the conditions are rather complicated, here is a link to a site that explain them:
https://www.secu-independants.fr/action-sociale/aide-coronavirus/

SUMMER VACATION: THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED JULY 17th to AUGUST 24th 
The office will be closed for one month, starting Friday, July 19th, reopening on Monday, August 24th. As always, I will be reachable by e-mail for emergencies and important matters. My service of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed.

MY MINOR FEES WILL INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2020
Handling mail in my office: 40 euros per month
Handling mail received at my home: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-the-office meetings: 60 euros which corresponds to less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend and during national French holidays and vacations: 30%.

Best regards,

QUESTION

WHEN A NON-PAYING TENANT HAS A GUARANTOR

I live in the USA and I own an apartment in the 7th. My tenant chosen by the agency has not paid the rent for over six months. My tenant is a young single mother. About a year ago, she asked me to certify her payments for allocations familiales/aide au logement and I signed the form and kept a copy for myself. The owner of the agency met with her last week and confirmed that the tenant does not have the means to pay the rent. The baby and Covid 19 are hurting her business really badly. But I cannot continue hosting them for free! The lease agreement is for a furnished apartment as a primary residence. The debt is now 12,500 euros. At the time of signing the contract in late 2017, I asked for a guarantor and I have documentation relating to a lady who I assume was her employer at the time.
Given this picture of the situation, please clarify: 
What is the eviction practice in France in these situations? Approximately how long will it take to get the apartment free again?
What action do you suggest I take against the guarantor? Is the guarantee subject to a time limit?
Is it possible to check the condition of my apartment? (I fear for my paintings and furnishings.)
I need a definitive solution fast, as I need this money.

QUESTION

INSURANCE CLAIM WHILE RENTING AN AIRBNB-TYPE PROPERTY

I managed to rent a large studio, through an agency in Paris and I have learned that it is a vacation lease signed with the owner. The reality is that the agency does not manage the lodging. As the middleman, it communicates with the owner, and deals with my numerous grievances. Today I found a small leak behind the faucet of the shower in my bathroom. I let a plumber in and the repair was done in 5 minutes. There was no visible damage to my apartment. There was some damage downstairs. The agency representative asked me to complete the damage report with the downstairs neighbor, and told me that I have had a policy in my name, purchased by them when the lease was issued.

What should I do next? The owner has insurance and the agency has insurance, and they say this policy is in my name. The owner seemed to infer that I do not need to worry about it. It would be a huge issue if I was made to pay for the damage done to the apartment below, because I have no idea what the neighbor downstairs is going to claim.

From Wikipedia:
“ ‘We Shall Overcome’ is a gospel song which became a protest song and a key anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. The song is most commonly attributed as being lyrically descended from “I’ll Overcome Some Day”, a hymn by Charles Albert Tindley that was first published in 1900.”

As I write this, there is beautiful weather outside, which I cannot take advantage of. The pandemic is sweeping the streets of Paris, as in so many cities in the world. France’s confinement (stay-at-home order) has already lasted nearly two weeks and there is no real end in sight.

I am extremely fortunate to be able to stay in my home, which is cozy and just big enough that I have a corner of a bedroom where I can work at a desk. Much of my work has been done remotely, and thus continues. All meetings in my office and at the prefectures have been canceled, but I have had a few via Skype or just over the phone.

Then there are those people we depend on to go to work in order to fight this illness in hospitals, to keep food stores open or to transport food to these stores. So many people are outside their homes, risking their lives for low paying jobs. I wrote this issue thinking of them, the ones I know personally and all the others. They have a work ethic and they know they need to do their job well, complying with the safety guidelines, when so many patients and clients disregard them.

All together, we shall overcome this pandemic. United, caring about each other’s life and well-being, all of us behaving the same way outside our home, we shall overcome – as the recent and not so recent past has shown, singing this gospel song, living it, believing its message. Right now and probably for weeks to come, if not months, selfishness kills people.

From Wikipedia:
“The Plague (French: La Peste) is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace.”

This would have been the obvious choice as the title of this issue. Everyone is referring to it. The book has become a best seller in many countries. It is indeed the right book to read right now, or to read again. Many need a description they can read or watch, like the movieContagion, which also has suddenly become extremely popular.

From Wikipedia:
“Contagion is a 2011 American thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. … The plot concerns the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and finally the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread.”

I far prefer an uplifting message of hope and unity, a message of caring and love to each other. So, we shall overcome.

THE PREFECTURES HAVE SHUT DOWN FOR THE DURATION OF THE CONFINEMENT
The Paris prefecture closed on March 17th and I assume that pretty much all the others in France closed at about the same time for immigration issues. The main consequence of this shutdown is that the validity ofcartes de séjour, récépissés, visas, APS and so on that expired starting on that date is being prolonged for at least three months. When the system reopens, all those expired documents will be considered valid and procedures will resume as usual.

The other consequence is bad news for foreigners who had appointments to submit an immigration request or pick up their carte de séjour: They all need to be rescheduled. At this point nothing is being said about how that will be handled. The worst solution for the applicants would be for the prefectures to require everyone to reschedule, primarily through the prefecture websites.

Before the crisis it was already common knowledge that some prefectures’ sites were dysfunctional; the few appointments available were issued at odd hours and gone minutes later. The Parisian prefecture website has only one flaw, that of scheduling appointments months later. I fear there will be an enormous rush when things reopen, which will submerge the system even more. Regardless of how many months the validity is extended, it will likely be insufficient to allow new appointments to be made on time. Little can be done to avoid this situation. If your appointment to submit your file has been canceled, be sure to keep the file up to date so it is always ready to be submitted literally overnight.

MEMORIES POSTED ON THE WALLS OF PRIVATE BUILDINGS IN PARIS
One morning several weeks ago as I walked up to the building where my office is, I saw a strange paper sign about Jewish children living there during the war who died in an extermination camp.

Bronze plaques on Parisian buildings are so common that I do not pay attention to them anymore. Throughout the centuries that the city has existed, many famous people have lived and died in Paris. But this very cheap A4 poster was saying something different. It was making a poignant reference to a time in French history that the country is ashamed of and that therefore is not as well-known as the Résistance or the days of the Libération when Parisians freed Paris almost completely by themselves.

Tales and historical truth mingle, as so often is the case. I was moved reading the names and ages of these very small children. That was the intent of the Union des Etudiants Juifs de France (UEJF), the French Jewish Student Union. The poster campaign in late January created a fair amount of controversy, with people wondering why someone was stirring up emotions about a historical event that is pretty well known thanks to books and movies like Sarah’s Key
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah%27s_Key 

The posters were put up to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Noémie Madar, president of the UEJF, said of the campaign: “It is about being able to transmit the memory of the Shoah.” One French press account gave this description:

“ ‘Passing by, remember their names’ could be read this Monday morning on the walls of certain districts of the capital. During the night, activists from the French Jewish Student Union stuck about 1,500 posters on building doors in memory of Parisian Jewish children deported during the Holocaust. The UEJF said it based its work on the census taken by the Klarsfeld spouses [Serge and Beate], who listed the names and addresses of the children; these were transposed onto an interactive map by a historian in 2012. Between 1942 and 1944, just over 6,000 children were arrested within the Paris city limits.”

I do not remember the names posted on my building, but I will remember that there were four of them and that Paris, like the rest of France, lived through WWII. Yes, today, when I think of the pandemic going through the streets of Paris, I remember the long lines of children and adults in the Vel’ d’Hiv’ roundup on July 16-17, 1942, arrested not by German soldiers but by French police to be sent to concentration camps.

MY SUMMERS WORKING IN A WAREHOUSE 
IN STAMFORD, CT
I got a lot of my early work experience as a young adult in the USA. In 1980 and 1981, while going to law school in France, I spent three months each summer in the USA, earning enough money during the first part of my stay to travel on Greyhound buses all over the country during the second half. It was hard labor, loading and unloading trailers full of rolls of material. Then I met people on those long bus rides, spending days traveling from New York City to Denver or from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Birmingham, Alabama. Those two summers and my military academy training are the life experiences, which have molded me the most.

I had two types of coworkers in the warehouse: older men who worked there all year for their living, and younger men, about my age, going to college and earning some or all of their tuition for the year. The work was physically hard and several young men quit.

I see a link between what I experienced then and what is being said now about the student loan situation. Working two months or so in the summer at minimum wage today does not come close to paying a year’s tuition at just about any college in the USA. To cover that cost, a loan is needed to supplement the meager wage earned in the summer. That is one side of the issue that has received a lot of press coverage, and rightly so.

But there is another side I have never read nor heard anything about: the early labor experience of corporate executives. I have admired America for its ability to mingle socially. In those days, even the children of rather wealthy parents would take this kind of job, for many reasons – experiencing independence from their parents, lightening their parents’ financial load, learning what hard labor means, seeing how operations on the ground really work, and so on. Some of these graduates ended up in senior executive positions. I believe that then, much more so than now, in the American business world, business decisions, policy implementation and strategic goals were often informed by personal knowledge of what they would mean to all employees, even those at the lowest level.

“Working hard” are probably the words I heard most often while I was living and working in the USA as an immigrant. I did work as hard as an immigrant is expected to. I believe that resilience and determination to get the job done are often learned from never quitting no matter how much your body aches at the end of the day. That work ethic, the respect earned for the job well done, was recognized by the leadership of the company.

Today, many people are crippled by student loans. Either they can barely meet the monthly payments or they have to declare bankruptcy, thus destroying their credit rating for years and making them something of an outcast in normal society. Meanwhile, those whose parents paid for their studies or who managed to finance their tuition by taking a small loan do not suffer the same consequences. Furthermore – and this is where I see the link – they often do not need or want to work summer jobs. I believe that part of the reason corporations’ monetary value has shifted from their capacity to produce goods and services to shareholder value is their executives’ lack of experience working as young adults at the bottom of the pyramid.

NEW REQUIREMENT FOR FRENCH NATIONALITY: 
A WRITTEN TEST
Applicants for French citizenship must take a test to determine if they have the required mastering of the French language. In recent years the requirement was a level of at least B1 on the Test de Connaissance du Français (TCF). Now this requirement is being upgraded to include a written test. Therefore the “old” certificates, called TCF-ANF (Accès à la Nationalité Française), issued as late as January 2020, are no longer valid starting on April 1st, 2020.

On March 21st 2019, the French Prime Minister stated his wish to make this test significantly more difficult, during a naturalization ceremony he attended at the Pantheon. The new TCF-ANF consists of oral comprehension, written comprehension, written expression and oral expression. As soon as I know exactly what is on the writing tests, I will provide details. Most people find that writing a foreign language is the hardest task, where all errors are the most evident. That is why a section on written French is now included in the test.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: THE TIME TO DECLARE IS ALMOST NOW!
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would like to remind everybody that paper versions of the 2019 income declaration must be filed in France by May 14th 2020 midnight. The declaration forms are available at www.impots.gouv.fr. The very first income declaration to the French tax office must be prepared using the paper form, and the “first time” box on the form called CERFA #2042, “Vous déposez une déclaration pour la première fois Cochez” must be checked. If this is not your first time filing, you can file your declaration on this website starting on April 8th. To do so, you need your tax ID number “numéro fiscal” and some access codes.

Note that if you file online, the deadline is later. The schedule depends on your postal code:

• départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on May 19th
• départements 20 to 49 by May 26th
• départements 50 or higher by June 2nd

I remind everybody that if you are self-employed in France, (often incorrectly called being ‘auto-entrepreneur’) the quarterly declarations sent to URSSAF do not constitute income tax declarations that must be sent to the tax office. I have seen a great many foreigners absolutely convinced that these quarterly declarations were the only fiscal obligation they had. The amount of income tax owed is often low and sometimes zero. The problem comes from the fact that the prefecture demands the income tax bill issued by the tax office called “avis d’imposition sur le revenue” for issuing almost all the immigration statuses. The prefecture can be quite lenient with the“visiteur”, student and expat statuses. For all the others, this document is mandatory. Filing late because the prefecture demands such an “avis”, means that the tax office sometimes issues the “avis d’imposition sur le revenue” six or more months after receiving the declaration. At best it considerably delays the issuance of the new carte de séjour. On occasion, the prefecture is not patient and foreigners lose their immigration status.

The main reasons for the tax office’s slowness are: 
1 – the page dedicated to the declaration on the website is not open all year long, so very late declarations must be filled on paper, thereby slowing down the process,
2 – once the tax season has ended, and if no tax is owed, there is no incentive to prepare this “avis” quickly.

MESSAGE FROM AARO REGARDING CARES 
Congress has passed the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the president has signed it into law. Americans abroad will be interested in understanding the law’s aid provisions and how they can be accessed. This is a summary of key aid provisions that are or may be relevant to Americans abroad –

• Americans abroad who meet the income eligibility criteria (income under $99,000) are entitled to the Recovery Rebate (up to $1,200 payment plus $500 per child).
• Taxpayers who have provided bank account details with their 2018 or 2019 tax filing will likely be receiving payments via direct debit in the next 2-3 weeks, with others likely to be sent checks or debit cards through the mail.

Under the Act, the US Treasury has been provided with flexibility in establishing the aid payment delivery mechanisms. We will be working with our friends on Capitol Hill to understand how the distribution of aid will progress. We will send information to members as soon as we have it.

aaro.org/advocacy/taxation-issues/808-americans-abroad-win-big-with-the-coronavirus-relief-law

Something similar was issued by the French government but the conditions are a lot more complicated to explain and therefore I have attached the flyer that explains it.
Here is the link for the self-employed people.

www.secu-independants.fr/action-sociale/aide-coronavirus/?fbclid=IwAR2dBxogsD5uYqEOPbn7hn5dRkkvSlbtwXlUiGJRRF3MfK6eJqIw-CH7PW4#c47596″

SUMMER VACATION: THE OFFICE WILL BE CLOSED JULY 17th to AUGUST 24th 
The office will be closed for one month, starting Friday, July 19th, reopening on Monday, August 24th. As always, I will be reachable by e-mail for emergencies and important matters. My service of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed.

MY MINOR FEES WILL INCREASE ON SEPTEMBER 1st, 2020
Handling mail in my office: 40 euros per month
Handling mail received at my home: 50 euros per month
Surcharge for out-of-the-office meetings: 60 euros which corresponds to less than 30 minutes’ transportation
Surcharge for meetings and phone calls at the client’s request after 7PM weekdays, all weekend and during national French holidays and vacations: 30%

Best regards,

QUESTION

WHICH LAW GOVERNS FRENCH ESTATES?

I am based in Nice and have been in multiple conversations where Americans shared contradictory advice received from different notaires, lawyers and experts. One French notaire wrote a French will so that the deceased’s assets and property in France would be governed by American law and the estate would be settled in the US at lower tax rates, thus “not touched” by France. A top-notch lawyer in Paris with legal qualifications in both the US and France told me that if you are a resident in France, when you pass, the French government allows a 100,000€ distribution to each biological child but after that, they tax worldwide assets, including funds and investments in the US and any real estate, at the French rate of 45%. With electronic transfer, they’ll find out about the foreign holdings, you cannot “hide” them. Can you tell me who is right?

QUESTION

THE USE OF THE FRENCH SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER

My daughter, who is European, has worked in Paris in a restaurant for the last six months. She submitted a form asking for a Carte Vitale at the CPAM in the 19th district in October 2019 and has not heard anything back yet. Right now, she cannot work and she will need to fill out a form to apply for unemployment. Her pay slip does not mention a Social Security number. She needs this money really badly and she cannot get it without this number. Which office in Paris deals with Social Security number issuance?

BACK TO SCHOOL – BACK TO WORK
In France, la rentrée, which generally coincides with the beginning of the school year, is not just for students; France also goes back to work. I hope that you all had a nice summer. I am writing this issue as France is going through one of several heatwaves. Some of them have broken heat records. My office naturally stays cooler than the outside temperature even at the worst time of the day.

France used to be completely asleep during the entire month of August. This was called the “Sleeping Beauty syndrome.” Although long-term residents of France notice each year that it is increasingly “business as usual” on August 1, a nonchalant ambience still reigns in Paris in August.

I remember as a small child watching my dad close up his shop, just as we closed up the house for vacation. Even though there were not many employees in his carpentry shop, for me the closing symbolized what was happening to businesses everywhere in the country. In the decades after 1936, the year the law requiring paid vacation was passed, the tradition of closing everything the first day of August was the norm, and France, except in tourist areas, “went to sleep.” My current office has the same kind of roller shutter as many shops, and I often think of those days when I walked around my dad’s woodworking shop. As I often state, I rely more on my ability to craft than coming up with a genius idea on the spur of the moment.

Today, the French are legally entitled to five weeks of paid vacation, which is enough to go away at least twice a year, and long enough that you feel disconnected from the office.

I TURNED 60
Yes, I turned 60 on a road trip that took my wife and me to a remote countryside village in Tuscany, Italy. We stopped several places where the norm was 1,000-year-old buildings and cities. To top this off, our final stop was Alesia, which is about a two-hour drive from Paris.

This is what Wikipedia says about it:
“The Battle of Alesia or Siege of Alesia was a military engagement in the Gallic Wars that took place in September, 52 BC, around the Gallicoppidum (fortified settlement) of Alesia, a major center of the Mandubii tribe. It was fought by the army of Julius Caesar against a confederation of Gallic tribes united under the leadership of Vercingetorix of the Arveni (the territory is today the départements of Puy-de-Dôme and Cantal.)

“It was the last major engagement between the Gauls and Romans, and is considered one of Caesar’s greatest military achievements and a classic example of siege warfare. The battle of Alesia marked the end of Gallic independence in France and Belgium.”

As a history lover and Christian, it moves me to know I am walking around looking at ruins that date roughly from the time of Christ. My wife learned how to pronounce Vercingetorix as we looked at his statue overlooking the nearby village.

I rarely reminisce, spending most of my time dealing with today’s affairs and planning my future when I can. But when I turned 40 and then 50, these were landmark times for me, life-changing moments. My 60th birthday was no different. For several months I have reflected on the fact that I cannot continue with my current workload, even though I still feel fit and see few physical reasons to slow down. Toying with these thoughts made me wonder: How old does one need to be before one feels the need to slow down?

That is where the title of this issue comes from. The last verse hits home for me:
“No, you’re never too old to rock ‘n’ roll
If you’re too young to die
No, you’re never too old to rock ‘n’ roll
But he was too young to die.”

I see myself continuing my work and my ministries for ten years or more, God willing.

MUSIC OF MY YOUTH 
I find the album Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! the most underrated by Jethro Tull, which is itself a very underrated band. In 2001 I joined the English Toastmasters chapter in Paris. Our first speech was to introduce ourselves. I did not follow the usual format but wrote various sections based on the Impressionist painting technique, i.e. splashes of color mingling together which at the end make a piece of art. I titled each section with the name of an album by this band:
Living in the Past
Stand up
Burst Out
Songs from the Woods
Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die!
Minstrels in the Gallery
Aqualung

Like many people, I discovered this band listening to Aqualung when I was 16.

From Wikipedia:
“Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll: Too Young to Die! is the ninth studio album released by the British band Jethro Tull, recorded in December 1975 and released in 1976. … [It] is the last Jethro Tull concept album, and follows the story of Ray Lomas, an aging rocker who finds fame with the changes in musical trends.”

I love Lomas’ ability to distance himself and project himself decades into the future when his career is over and he is getting ready to be put out to pasture. At the same time, the orchestration and lyrics blend really well, as is so often the case with this band. The albumsThick as a Brick and Living in the Past are also exceptional in that regard. Writing this issue made me realize that I own most of the concept albums of that time; nearly all the major bands of the time made at least one.

I remind my readers that Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942, Mike Jagger on July 26, 1943, Roger Daltrey on March 1, 1944, and Elton John on March 25, 1947. Who would have guessed that they would still be playing, enjoying worldwide fame at the age of being grandfathers! There must be a special place for Keith Richards, born on December 18, 1943; the very fact that he is still alive is a mystery to many.

A TREASURE HUNT IS GOING ON IN PARIS!
I heard this comment recently on French national TV, and even though it is 100% false, the gigantic repairs and renovations occurring right now do give the impression that every single block in the city is undergoing massive construction.

There are three very different reasons why this is happening.

First, there is normal maintenance, which does not require much explanation. Then there is a policy that was introduced after the previous mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, was elected on March 18, 2001 – that of discouraging cars and trucks from driving within the city limits. The current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, elected on April 5, 2014, has followed the same policy. It has been said that she is even stricter regarding this goal. So all over the city, areas open to cars are shrinking, with streets losing one or even two lanes, while new bus and bicycle lanes are being created and old ones are being enlarged. Sidewalks are being widened and new-model newsstands are being installed. Of course, this work means narrowing and sometimes closing many streets, totally disrupting traffic.

Third, the gas and electricity companies sometimes need to do maintenance and dig holes, but this is marginal compared to what the Compagnie Parisienne de Chauffage Urbain (CPCU) is doing.

From Wikipedia:
CPCU “is a semi-public company, a subsidiary of the Engie group (66% owned by Engie and 33% by the City of Paris), responsible for district heating, mainly by means of a water vapor network, in Paris and in several surrounding communes (Aubervilliers, Boulogne-Billancourt, Charenton-le-Pont, Choisy-le-Roi, Clichy, Gennevilliers, Gentilly, L’Île-Saint-Denis, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Ivry-sur-Seine, Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, Levallois-Perret, Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen and Vitry-sur-Seine).”

District heating, also known as city heating, transports and distributes steam to a network nearly 480 km long, which heats many buildings in these municipalities. The infrastructure had not been adequately maintained for a long time, and in recent years more and more buildings terminated their contracts and chose a different way to get hot water. To deal with the competition from the electric and gas companies, the CPCU decided to undertake massive renovation and offer a more competitive service. Where this is the case, there is always a small poster stating that the CPCU is managing the construction site.

Despite the goofy “treasure hunt” statement and drivers’ exasperation, several important issues are being addressed here. Since the CPCU is partly owned by the city of Paris, it has been said that the intent is to create the maximum chaos possible on all fronts. In truth, Parisian officials believe fossil fuel use should be a thing of the past and they want to invest in public transport, including electric cars and buses, and develop other non-polluting forms of transport. The vast majority of the inhabitants and governments in most developed countries are of the same opinion, and they are implementing policies intended to phase out the use of fossil fuel.

In the USA, very few cities are more than 400 years old. In Europe, a significant share of the population lives in buildings as old as, say, Williamsburg, Virginia. Many European cities were built before cars and electricity were invented. When it came time to modernize them, the common-sense reflex was to make the oldest neighborhoods, most of them 500 years old and older, into pedestrian zones. Streets in these areas were often too narrow for even one car. At the other end of the spectrum, Paris worked for decades, from the 1960s to the 1990s, to make car traffic more fluid, to the detriment of pedestrians. On the other hand, northern European cities protected their ancient downtowns from very early on. Some cities charge stiff fees to drive inside the city center, which deters many. France, especially Paris, has never had the political will to impose such a system or to set apart large sections of the city for pedestrians. Arrondissements 1 to 4, which were the city limits before Baron Haussmann started reshaping the city in the mid-19th century, could have been pedestrianized, considering how old they are.

To illustrate my point, Henry IV (1553–1610) drained a swamp just outside the city limits of the time, which was called the marais in French. Now the famous neighborhood still known as the Marais has some of the city’s oldest privately-owned buildings, and people still live in them.

The Pont Neuf, which means “the new bridge,” is the oldest bridge in the city. Henry IV wanted it built so that Paris would grow on the other side of the river towards the Louvre.

To conclude this comparison, the city of Williamsburg was founded as the capital of the Virginia Colony in 1699, nearly a century after the Pont Neuf was finished.

Regarding the way current Parisian leaders are handling the construction, should we criticize them for the inconvenience and apparent lack of coherence, or should we support them for their goal and look beyond the honking and moaning? The prize in the infamous treasure hunt could be better air to breathe and a quieter, more peaceful city, without making it a museum for tourists like Colonial Williamsburg.

For more information, see www.paris.fr/chantiers.

THE LINK BETWEEN THE FRENCH INCOME DECLARATION, THE TAXE D’HABITATION AND RENTAL INCOME TAXATION
France’s income tax declaration requires information about your primary residence: you must state whether you are the owner, a tenant or a guest. There is also a section to be filled out if you moved during the previous or current year. The fact that half the front page is dedicated to the address shows how important this matter is to the tax office. Among other things, it enables tax officials to levy an appropriate taxe d’habitation (lodging tax) as well as the TV license fee, the redevance audiovisuelle, in the autumn. A consequence often forgotten by renters is that filing an income declaration in France triggers the imposition of the taxe d’habitation and also the taxation of the rental income the landlord receives.

There are so many dubious unwritten leases, subleases, cash rental arrangements and so on in Paris, and probably other major French cities, that many renters get into serious trouble with their landlord over having declared their income. This aspect of things is always overlooked unless a professional identifies the problem. It should not prevent people from doing the right thing, but it helps them get ready for the attack, which often occurs after the landlord receives a notice to pay taxes on undeclared rental income, along with the associated fines and other penalties. One way of knowing where you stand is whether you paid the taxe d’habitation before you declared income for the first time. If you did, then there is no danger. If you did not, and you have lived in your current place for a couple of years or more, this is a sign that your landlord is paying this tax and hopes the tax office will ignore the fact that he has a tenant there.

MY COLUMN AND MY READERSHIP
My business listing of subscribers exceeded 3,000 members this summer. This is an achievement, even though many would consider this number tiny compared to most blogs targeting the expatriate community in France. Stephen Heiner is my adviser on those topics, and also a good friend. He looked at some of the data related to my column. The average ratio of openings is 86% over the last five months and continues to grow after one month. He says that these two situations set my readership apart, and he cites several reasons:

• I have never used a list of which I was not a member.
• I have had a personal exchange with every single person who is on my subscriber list.
• The list has never been used for any promotions and has never been sold to anyone, and no one but my webmaster and I have even had access to it.
• As I have been in business for over 20 years now (since 1997), many of the readers have been my clients.

The most common referral I now get is someone who knows one of my readers and either was told I would be able to help or received an issue of my column dealing exactly with the problem they are having. Since I seldom give courses and conferences anymore, I rely on my readership, which I have long assumed was made up of past and current clients. Now I know that this impression was right, judging by the information my publishing software gave me.

As of August 30th, the entire list has 3,435 email addresses, and the business one has 3,058.

For those interested in specific numbers:

• July 2019 – sent = 2.990 – received = 2.977 opened = 2.196 unsubscribed = 4 – 74%
• June 2019 – sent = 2.946 – received = 2.941 opened = 2.466 unsubscribed = 4 – 84%
• May 2019 – sent = 2.918 – received = 2.910 opened = 2.546 unsubscribed = 8 – 88%
• April 2019 – sent = 2.886 – received = 2.880 opened = 2.704 unsubscribed = 11 – 94%
• March 2019 – sent = 2.844 – received = 2.838 opened = 2.474 unsubscribed = 4 – 87%.

I am honored, and I thank every single reader from the bottom of my heart. I look at the numbers and I feel humbled by this faithfulness. Thank you again.

MY FEES WILL GO UP ON OCTOBER 1st 2019
I plan to change some aspects of my business when I reopen the office on Monday, August 19th. The main reason is to allow my assistant to do some tasks more systematically. One of them is to accompany the clients to the prefecture, URSSAF, CPAM and other public offices. She already handles most of the dealings with the offices where self-employed people are registered. She has also accompanied my clients to the prefecture several times. As her fees are lower than mine, this should compensate for the increase in my fees. On October 1st, I will raise my initial retainer from 270€ to 300€ and the hourly rate from 110€ to 130€.

Best regards,

QUESTION

WIRING MONEY FROM THE USA TO FRANCE

I arrived a few months ago in France and settled in the countryside near Cahors. I had no problem opening a bank account by showing my American passport and my OFII identification. I heard that there is legislation called TRACFIN that regulates international wiring of money. Would the issue come up if I were going to transfer money from my American to my French bank? Does this come up if I leave that money in my US account and transfer small amounts over time? I need to bring money to France, as I am not allowed to work here.

QUESTION

FRENCH TAXATION OF FRENCH AND AMERICAN INCOME

I have been working in France and have paid my French taxes dutifully. I also paid taxes in the US on American income. For immigration reasons, I must show my French income tax statement, showing my global worldwide income for the last three years. Since they became aware of all of my revenue, I now owe them an additional 2,618€ for the 2016 and 2017 tax years. I was shocked and very upset, as I didn’t budget to pay this sum and when I declared my US revenue, I didn’t think this action would affect my tax situation in France. Does this seem right to you? Is there anything that I can do to not have to pay this huge sum for these years?

QUESTION

THE OTHER WAY TO GET A CARTE DE SEJOUR IN THE COUNTRYSIDE

I read with interest your May 19 Q&A column, in particular, your comments regarding becoming a “tax resident” of France after 183 days. Being Australian, we resided in Dept 86, the Vienne, from 2008 until 2013, having visiteur cartes de séjour.As you described, we had to provide evidence of home-ownership which was not a problem as we had purchased a fermette in 2000. Other documentation demonstrating financial security, health insurance, etc. was also required. Our visiteur status meant we had to appear at the Prefecture de la Vienne each year for renewal of our cartes de séjour. Mind you, by the time they arrived in La Poste, it was time to commence the whole proceeding again! Thank you for your column, which I find very interesting even though I do not live in France at present. And BTW, a very happy 60th!

First of all, I would like to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous 2019!
French custom dictates that New Year’s wishes can be expressed until the end of January,
so I have managed it a few hours before the deadline.

Joseph Allen “Country Joe” McDonald composed “The “Fish” Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” in 1965, with its very familiar chorus (“One, two, three, what are we fighting for?”), which Country Joe and the Fish sang at Woodstock.

Sitting in Paris, following very closely what is going on in France and the USA, the question on my mind and on both sides on the ocean is: “Who is fighting for what?”

In the USA, there is fighting for and against “the wall”. In France, we have seen rioting on the most prestigious avenue in the country. There has been violence on both sides, with the police having the hardest time keeping control of the streets of Paris and most other major French cities almost every Saturday. Who are these people so faithfully demonstrating, and who is littering once the demonstration is over?

I have always liked the saying, “Pick your fight!” While it should never end in a fistfight, it defines a strategy that carries a lot of common sense.

Time will tell what will come of these situations. The USA will recover from the longest government shutdown in history, but it will be interesting to see who wins and who loses once life goes back to something more normal.

As for France, how can it get out of this situation of defiant grassroots opposition? Note that unions and political parties in France can organize public demonstrations in the streets very easily. This is even a topic for which the expat community makes fun of France. But in this case, none of the unions or parties have been able to organize a plan of action that enables them to become part of the normal scheme of things. In 1968, the CGT union, which was then controlled by the Communist Party, was able to take over the famous May demonstrations, and ended up obtaining a breakthrough in labor law, the Grenelle accords.

All the French leaders who matter give the impression of being numb in the current situation.

Later in this column I mention the Boston Tea Party. I started the column mentioning Woodstock and a song associated with the hippie movement and opposition to the Vietnam War.

As the song by Bob Dylan puts it, “The Times They Are a-Changin’ ” – this is obvious to everybody.

In the midst of all this, I would like to wish everybody Happy Valentine’s Day in an effort to lighten the atmosphere.

THE STRAW THAT BROKE THE CAMEL’S BACK – LES GILETS JAUNES
Journalists and commentators always like to analyze in detail the “little thing” that ignites a revolution, a rebellion, unrest and so on. It is often a minor thing, with little significance and meaning unless one retraces years and sometimes decades of whatever policy creates the conditions for major unrest.

The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16th, 1773, at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts. It was spurred by the Tea Act of the previous May, which allowed the British East India Company to collect taxes in the American colonies.

The colonists argued that the British constitution did not allow “taxation without representation” – and the truth can be stated like this: “Yes, we live in a colony, but we matter – and we want a say in the rules that are governing us.”

The Boston Tea Party would never have taken place, and would not have led to the independence of the USA, if the underlying demand for representation in the British parliament had not been so strongly shared by the people living in the colonies that were soon to become the 13 original states.

The parallel I see is that the price of gasoline in France is mostly made up of taxes. The average price is €1.55 a liter, or about $6.75 a gallon. The USA would never accept such expensive gas – there would be riots everywhere. In France, however, one might think that increasing the tax yet again should not have led to the riots we have seen occurring in the streets of Paris. But underneath, there was some serious and long-lasting discontent on the part of the general population.

The famous French motto “liberté, égalité, fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity) is visible on all French public buildings. It has its origins in the 1789 French Revolution, and was institutionalized in the late 19th century. Through the centuries the French people’s perception of it and what it stands for has changed somewhat, yet it emphases the idea that there is unity and solidarity within the French nation. I would translate fraternité today as “brotherhood”. Since 1983, French conservative and liberal governments alike have implemented pretty much identical economic policies. Equality and brotherhood have been overlooked for decades, leading to increasing erosion of the foundations of the French nation.

There is a fundamental difference between the USA and France regarding this issue. In the USA, no one has any problem with some people becoming very wealthy and being conspicuous about it. The fundamental reason is that most people believe they, too, can become rich, as this is the American Dream: It is the land of opportunity, where the sky is everybody’s limit. This is of course more a belief than a reality, but it remains a foundation of the USA as a nation.

The French overthrew their king a few times to settle definitively for a republic because, among other reasons, they had this desire for equality and fairness, and trusted the government to protect them from the excessive desires of the wealthy and powerful. This is one reason the French government apparatus is so huge, and at one time or another has included many businesses, such as banks, car manufacturers, the postal service, the railroads, and so on.

President Macron was elected on the promise that his policies would be very different from those of his predecessors. One of his themes during the campaign was that he would put equality and brotherhood back into French politics while also having a conservative economic policy. Without listing all the reforms France has gone through during his presidency, it is clear that equality and brotherhood have never been part of his government’s policy. It is even more conservative than before, with what a lot of people have described as disdain for the working class and the poor. In other words, his “reforms” could have been those of any previous government. Indeed, he should have thought twice before getting rid of the wealth tax while French employees suffered a severe loss of rights. It was a tax increase on gas and diesel fuel that ignited the gilets jaunes revolt.

This is why I see a parallel with the Boston Tea Party, and I believe that it has a lot of merit. I have no idea where it will take the French nation. I very strongly doubt that President Macron will be ousted by a revolution. Short of that, I have no idea what the outcome will be. Clearly this is a political crisis that must be addressed very seriously, not by just delaying the tax increase – which, obviously, is not the problem in itself. It is just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

THE FRENCH BANKING INDUSTRY
A recent post on Stephen Heiner’s blog and a conversation we had gave me the idea of writing about the French banking industry. One reason it is becoming a topic of discussion among many foreigners living in France is that opening and using a bank account is pretty much a must if one is to retain French immigration status. Also, since cash transactions are increasingly rare, it has become virtually impossible to live in France without a French bank account.

One oddity of the French banking industry is that the savings and loans side accounts for about half of the global market, if not more. Many people do not know this, and foreigners have no reason to find out unless they do some research on their own. There are six major independent French financial institutions: Société Générale and BNP-Paribas, which are banks owned by shareholders, and Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel, Caisse d’Epargne and Banque Populaire, which are savings and loans owned by their clients. All others either do private banking for the rich, are French branches of foreign banks, or are subsidiaries of one of those six institutions; there are a very few exceptions, including La Banque Postale, Crédit Foncier and a few others.

For better or worse, the industry as a whole has harmonized a lot of practices, the most obvious being wiring/withdrawal capacity and the use of debit cards.

The major difference I see between the French and American banking systems is that in France, the client hardly ever needs to meet with a bank employee; everything is done via machines (mainly ATMs to deposit and withdraw money) or online. One actually goes to the bank only in specific cases, such as asking for a loan, investing in stocks and mutual funds, and opening an account. A lot of criticism I hear about French banking is the absence of personal contact with the banker assigned to the client. But that assumes French banking is the same as in the USA or elsewhere, when it is not. To adapt easily to French banking, you should first find out all the services the machines offer, often in a room located outside the branch office itself, and usually open long hours, e.g. 7AM to 10PM. Then create an account online and learn about all the services offered on the website or app, knowing that one needs a French cell phone to use some of them, such as authorizing a credit card payment on a website or adding an account to wire money to.

Yes, as with so much else in France, a foreigner must learn how the French banking industry works, because it is so different.

The second part of this topic is finding a way to open a bank account in France. The reason it is so difficult at first is a compounding effect of a French regulation and an American one. The latter is called FATCA, which I have already discussed several times. For an American citizen, opening an account in France means the bank has to report to the IRS. There is serious liability if it does not do so, but reporting entails onerous paperwork for the bank. Thus, regardless of the balance you plan on leaving in your French bank account, your citizenship is a put-off for French banks. Nothing personal here – you can blame the IRS!

The French regulation is called TRACFIN, which I have also explained several times – the name refers both to the legislation fighting money laundering and the team of investigative inspectors enforcing it. The legislation makes every bank branch manager personally and criminally responsible for any money laundering and/or other criminal activities related to moving money in and out of bank accounts for which they are responsible. Any new client appears at first to be a potential liability until the bank is sure where the money comes from, how it was acquired and so on. Once the bank is reassured about this, the account is opened. This is why the file to open a French bank account often seems worse than the one for the prefecture, which is the benchmark for many.

FRENCH WELFARE AND PART-TIME WORK
All countries that have some kind of welfare system need to address a well-known problem. When a person goes off welfare and gets a job, it can happen that the amount of money they earn is less than they were receiving on welfare. This makes any “all or nothing” system counterproductive, so there is a need for some kind of transition to smooth the path back to working.

In France, most subsidies paid by the Caisse d’allocations familiales (CAF) are linked to the amount of income declared. When the Revenu de Solidarité Actif (RSA, originally called RMI for Revenu Minimal d’Insertion) was created, the problem was identified but poorly addressed. One person I help is paid twice a year because the number of hours they work is so small, and so they receive RSA at the same time. Since CAF demands to receive a quarterly declaration, such people often end up with close to zero income for half the year because a salary of about €1300 exceeds the limit. The system does not understand that this is not a monthly income but a semiannual one.

The problem has not been solved yet by CAF, but this person will be paid quarterly and should be able to maintain all the benefits of the RSA combined with their very small salary.

On the other hand, the prime d’activité created in 2016 replaced the failing system for people holding steadier jobs with very low salaries. The calculation is complex but the end result is easy to understand. It minimizes the consequence of earning income just above the limit in the calculation of the other subsidies and thus creates a real incentive to work more. Since it applies not just to employees but also to the self-employed, it helps people with erratic income, and it applies to everybody living in France, including carte de séjour holders under certain conditions. It shows that, in reality, continuing a tad longer to subsidize an individual is a better way to get them off welfare when they are ready. What puts people on a welfare program is often a complex story with several things happening more or less at the same time.

THE MARITAL REGIME FOR INTERNATIONAL COUPLES MARRYING AFTER JANUARY 29th 2019
Without going into too much detail, this issue concerns which rule of ownership is applied to an international couple, a matter that had been regulated by the Hague Marriage Convention of March 14th 1978. The couple could choose between the regime linked to their citizenship, the location of the wedding, and the country where they spent their first significant amount of married life.

A new European Union regulation states that such couples can now only choose between the countries of which they are citizens and that where they started their married life. The latter is chosen by default, and this rule covers the entire net worth of the couple, including assets – especially real estate – in other countries. That part is one of the major changes in the new regulation.

To put this in context: in 2015, 27% of the weddings celebrated in France were what was called mixed, because they involved spouses of different nationalities.

www.lemonde.fr/argent/article/2018/12/03/regimes-matrimoniaux-du-nouveau-pour-les-mariages-internationaux_5391775_1657007.html

SPLITTING PREROGATIVES IN THE FRENCH ADMINISTRATION
People who have been in France since before 2011 may remember the complicated French tax office reform when the billing-collection part was merged with the office calculating the amount of taxes owed. The root of the historic division between the two went back to Napoleon’s time and stems from a complete distrust of people: Ensuring that the person calculating how much must be paid is totally disconnected from the person collecting the amount due was a way to avoid attempted bribery of either party. Even today, when the two divisions of the tax office are located in the same building, they are physically as far apart as possible and there is next to no contact between them. Being physically closer has not destroyed the barriers created by the centuries!

This way of functioning is less and less common but has not completely disappeared. My readers have followed what feels like the endless saga of PUMA coverage, in which CPAM had delivered health coverage, and therefore reimbursements, all along while URSSAF stopped collecting premiums for two years and since December 2017 has sent invoices to people who are not covered by the system. Aside from the obvious screw-up by the French administration, this provides a very good illustration of the division of administrative processes.

Another that is not as well known is for the independents, the necessity of registering with net.entreprise.fr to declare and pay social charges (the Social Security side of what is owed) and the chosen health coverage organization that deals with medical costs. One change the internet has brought is that a single part of the administration can now calculate and collect the money owed, since everything is done through the website, making it difficult to have any personal contact with the civil servant in charge of the operation. While double registration is old hat to French people, being self-employed in France brings daily surprises to foreigners who have just started running their business. This is just a gentle reminder: Yes, it is now a legal obligation to register with net.entreprise.fr if your yearly turnover exceeds €3,973, which pretty much means everybody.

IN FRANCE THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD PREVAILS – SORT OF!
On July 11th 1975, the French law governing modern divorce was passed. To the man who drafted it, the jurist Jean Carbonnier, the foundation of French family law was “the best interest of the child”. Obviously, however, the legal understanding of this phrase can depend on what the reality is with the parents, siblings and so on. Also, I believe that an excess of the emphasis on transparency regarding a child can be completely against his or her best interests.

A groundbreaking ruling of the Nîmes court of appeal, issued on June 27th 2017, shows the limits of strict interpretation. In the case, a Napoleonic interpretation would have been that it was impossible to overrule the legal assumption that the husband is the father. In the days before DNA testing, it was difficult to dispute this assumption.

To sum up the situation, a married woman had a clandestine affair, got pregnant and gave birth. The lover suspected that he was the father and managed to arrange a DNA test. It proved, within a statistical margin of error, that he was the father. So he went to city hall and officially declared himself as such.

The married couple argued that the legal assumption was that a child born to a married couple has these two people as parents. The biological father stated that it was in the child’s interest to know who the real father was, that the DNA test left no doubt that he was the father, and that therefore the court must overrule the legal presumption that the child was born of the married couple.

This is the key quote from the court ruling:

« [S]’il est évident qu’il sera peut-être difficile pour l’enfant de devoir considérer que M. Z est son père et non pas M. Y, il appartiendra aux époux Y, et singulièrement à la mère, qui est, malgré tout, à l’origine de la situation, d’aider Anna à l’appréhender ».

In short, the best interest of the child is to know who the biological father is, and the court expects the mother to manage this difficult situation. The court adds that it is normal for this responsibility to fall on her, as she is responsible for the situation.

This ruling, after over ten years of court procedure, leaves me at a complete loss when it comes to an opinion of what is the best interest of the child. The married couple has appealed the decision to the highest French court, the Cour de Cassation, whose ruling will be very interesting. According to the legal opinions I have read, many think that this degree of transparency, considered to be in the child’s best interest, has gone too far.

How does this relate to French divorce law? In France, guardianship is decided in the best interest of the child. Many foreign mothers do not get full custody of their children. Indeed, the French court system fears that giving foreign women custody of their French children would result in their living elsewhere; in the French legal view, the best interest of the child is to stay in France.

This does not mean that, for example, an American mother divorcing her French husband cannot get full custody and the right to move back to the USA, taking her child or children with her. But the case she makes must address the right issue: the best interest of the child as the court understands it.

http://sosconso.blog.lemonde.fr/2018/11/27/le-pere-biologique-peut-il-reconnaitre-lenfant-dune-femme-mariee/

OFFICE CLOSED FOR MY 60th BIRTHDAY
The office will close for slightly over two weeks for this occasion. It will start on Friday June 14th evening and will reopen on Tuesday July 2nd morning. As always, I will only be reachable by email for emergencies and important matters as I will be out of France. The service I offer of receiving mail for clients will continue while the office is closed. I have not figured out how I will send the July issue considering the situation.

Best regards,

QUESTION

LOCAL TAXES IN FRANCE

I am living long term in a four-bedroom house in Cergy. All the other roommates come and go, so I am the only person living there long term.
The owner says that if I claim this address on my tax form, it will cost him an extra €2000 in taxe d’habitation, so I must use a different address.
Is this true? What do you recommend to avoid this extra cost? I have never had a landlord do this before.

QUESTION

THE IMMIGRATION STATUS NEEDED TO MARRY A FRENCH CITIZEN IN FRANCE

I am an American, currently resident in Ireland, and am looking to join my French partner in France in 2019. We are not yet married, but are looking at our options for us to live together in France and also allow me to work in France as soon as possible. Ideally, I will get a job with a French company in the coming months that will take care of my work permit; however, if this does not happen, we see two options and would greatly appreciate your help in better understanding the questions we have and deciding how to proceed:
Option 1: I go to France on a Short Stay Visa, Legal Marriage in France within 90 Days. Can I change from the Short Stay Visa to a Spouse Visa while in France? If not, would I need to go to the French Embassy in the US or Ireland and apply for a Spouse Visa? Can I work in France on a Spouse Visa? If yes, what is the time frame for being able to start working? Are there requirements for the Spouse Visa, such as French language and/or culture exam?

Option 2: I get a Long Stay Visa, I find a job in France. Can I convert the Long Stay Visa to a Work Permit immediately? If not, what is the time frame required from a visa/legal standpoint? Does it require waiting until the Long Stay Visa expires? If not, do I need to go back to US/Ireland (pending timeframe) to go to the French Embassy to apply for a Work Visa?

Please let me know if these are questions you can assist with, if there any additional information needed, and how we can proceed from here. Any help is much appreciated!

From Wikipedia:
The Gospel Train (Get on Board)” is a traditional African-American spiritual first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers. A standard gospel song, it is found in the hymnals of many Protestant denominations and has been recorded by numerous artists.

The original meaning of the word “gospel” is “good news.” The title may be deceiving, since this month once again I do not have much good news to offer. But I enjoyed drafting the section about the SNCF and the trains, and thought it would be nice to refer to it.

HAD TO BUY A NEW COMPUTER URGENTLY IN EARLY APRIL
In early April, my computer was stolen. This disorganized my work a lot more than I would have thought.

After trying for a week to use my son’s computer and my backup, I found that several programs were not compatible. After a week I gave up and bought a new one with a French keyboard, which I was not used to.

Now I am starting to catch up with the work that accumulated during the two weeks where I could not be efficient on the computer. I tried my best and prioritized as much as I could. If I missed anything, just send an email again and I will get to it.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

FRENCH INCOME TAX: TIME TO DECLARE IS NOW
Regarding the more mundane topic of income tax, I would like to remind everybody that the paper version of the 2017 income declaration must be filed in France by Wednesday, May 17th and the second partial income tax payment (deuxième tiers) is to be paid by May 15th (midnight, in both cases). The forms are already available at www.impots.gouv.fr. It is possible to file your declaration on this website, provided it is not your first time. To do so, you need your tax ID number and some access codes

• .Note that if you file online, the deadline is later. The schedule depends on your postal code:
• départements 01 to 19 must file by midnight on May 22nd
• départements 20 to 49 by May 29 th
• départements 50 or higher by June 5th

An important reminder: if you are a French fiscal resident (i.e. if you hold a carte de séjour or an immigration visa validated with an OFII stamp, and comply with the requirements), you must declare your worldwide income to the French authorities even if you have no income in France and do not have the right to work in France. There is no penalty for neglecting to file, but not meeting this obligation is illegal and can have consequences.

You are a French fiscal resident if you:

• 1. Staying in France for 183 days in a calendar year, whether you have legal immigration status or not.
• 2. Having immediate family members who reside in France (a spouse and/or children).
• 3. Having a French employer.
• 4. Running a French business, even something like tutoring schoolchildren in English.

Current government-sponsored advertising campaigns call the paper form a thing of the past and say filing on paper is obsolete. For now, declaring electronically gives you an extension of a few weeks.

RETENUE À LA SOURCE – INCOME TAX WITHHOLDING STARTS ON JANUARY 1st 2019
I first mentioned that this would happen in my July-August 2015 column. Now the tax office is communicating by email and letters in the mail informing everybody that this enormous reform to the taxation method is in place and people need to get ready for it.

France is one of the last Western countries where income tax is paid by the individual directly and not withheld by the employer. There are many cultural and historical reasons why the French people have been reluctant to change this set-up, but all of them combined are not enough to explain why it has not yet been done.

Under the new system, everybody, even the self-employed, will make monthly payments.

There is only one technical reason that withholding tax would be very difficult to set up. It is called the quotient familial. I believe France is the only country that taxes the family as a group rather than individuals. This means the amount of tax you owe changes if:

• – You get married,
• – You get divorced,
• – You have a child,
• – The child leaves the home,
• – A family member dies, and/or
• – A family member becomes disabled.

Such events occur frequently enough in the course of a lifetime that they could significantly change the amount withheld. A withholding system works best if there is just a small discrepancy at the end of the year. This is why the French system prefers to have taxes paid in three installments. The first two, in February and in May, are calculated on the amount owed the year before, and the last one on the amount of taxes owed for the year.

Neither employers nor employees are very happy with the coming reform. Employers do not want an extra task to complicate the French pay slip even more. Employees dislike the fact that employers will know much more about their private lives: Employees will have to tell employers right away if any of the above-mentioned changes takes place, and employers will have to inform the tax office to calculate the new amount owed. Given the level of distrust French employees have toward employers, this could create major difficulties.

For self-employed people, the tax office relies on the previous year’s income and the amount of taxes owed to determine how much money will be taken out monthly. The same reasons for a radical change in the amount of taxes owed also apply here. Presumably the person in this situation can tell the tax office directly to modify the calculation accordingly. Knowing how such withholding is done today – it is set in stone for the entire calendar year – I am really not sure this has been changed to accommodate the above situations.

PACS DISSOLUTION: THE LACK OF A COURT DECISION CAN COMPLICATE MATTERS
A faithful reader who is a marriage counselor has sent me a comment worth reflecting on.

“Thanks for your latest column which, as usual, is full of useful information and interesting reflections. On the subject of the PACS, it might be useful to point out that a PACS can be unilaterally abrogated at the request of one of the partners. This happened recently to one of the women in my support group. A few days later the man showed up at the couple’s flat late at night with the police and literally threw the woman out in the street with her belongings!”
My reaction: There must be a lot more to the story, given how primary domicile is protected in France. But this illustrates one of the downsides of the PACS. Since there is no judge or notaire involved in the dissolution, the partners are left to determine the split of assets and debts on their own, as well as finding a way to agree on practical matters so each partner can leave the relationship with what is theirs.

It is rarely the case that the agreement is amicable, given how often relationships end in acrimony. This is a good opportunity to remind you once again that a PACS can indeed be unilaterally abrogated, and the consequences can be terrible. In such cases, filing in court is often the best thing to do, particularly if one partner is being bullied as described above and may have trouble securing their rights.

AN AMERICAN GOT FINED LEAVING FRANCE FOR OVERSTAYING THE 90-DAY PERIOD
It is clear that the French police at airports are getting stricter about overstaying. I learned from one of my clients that an American citizen was fined about 100€ for overstaying the 90-day Schengen limit. As far as I know, this person has actually been living in France without any immigration status for a very long time and has regularly overstayed in the past, always by a few days or a few weeks.

Therefore, to me this is a signal that the French police are now looking at what is inside the passport and not just the first page. While other feedback I am getting indicates there are still many going through without any consequences, the trend is clear. There will come a day when overstaying will mean paying a fine.

FRANCE IS FACING MORE AND MORE STRIKES
At the time of writing, the national train company SNCF, university students and Air France are on strike. I do not intend to discuss or even review the new government policies against which people are striking.

Foreigners are generally amazed at how and why French people go on strike. In many countries, labor and management negotiate, with a deadline. If an agreement is not found by then, the confrontation leaves the negotiating table and goes into the streets, with demonstrations, picketing and so on. It becomes an arm-twisting match.

In France, on the other hand, strikes and street demonstrations occur before negotiations really start, since France has never had a culture that promotes negotiation and compromise as a way to obtain negotiated agreements. The public and private sectors both are then crippled, and for the same reason. It is almost as if each party is presenting its position as definitive, with no room for negotiation. Strikes then become a way to determine who wins. In the end, there is little negotiation. Either the unions are unable to mobilize enough people and there is a lack of popular support, so the reform goes into effect pretty much as is. Or the strike is strong, picking up momentum and public support, in which case the government is left with little option but damage control. The reform is stopped, and the status quo – which is not good most of the time – is maintained.

Given the nature and extent of President Macron’s reforms, it was clear that no matter how much of a wizard he is in public relation and negotiations, there would be strikes and strong opposition. Personally, I was surprised the strikes did not start much sooner, and they are a lot less severe than I expected. The credit goes to President Macron, who has done quite well so far.

Clearly the SNCF needs to be drastically reorganized, as the overall quality of service is poor, the trains are often not on time, the comfort in the trains (aside from the TGV) is not great, and the suburban trains and infrastructure are in bad shape; by the way the Parisian suburban train system has already started its makeover. There is a need to shift the focus away from the TGV so the rest of the system can deliver decent service.

There is fierce debate about the special status the SNCF employees have, especially the ones operating the trains. The cheminots – the name today refers by extension to all the people working at the SNCF – have an honored history:

From Wikipedia:
The Battle of the Rails (French: La Bataille du rail) is a 1946 war movie directed by René Clément which depicts the efforts by French railway workers to sabotage German troop transport trains.

During the war, members of the CGT union, many of them also members of the Communist party, launched their own battle against the Germans, making it more and more difficult for the Wehrmacht to move troops, artillery and other weapons. This, among many other things, had a measurable impact on the success of D-Day, for example. At the end of the war, the surviving leaders were decorated as exceptional warriors. It is interesting that even today this has an echo in the general population, much more than one would expect some 75 years later.

This overly emotional discussion of whether rail workers deserve their so-called perks distracts from a more interesting issue, which I believe should be the main one. Trains today are powered by electricity and there are railroad tracks everywhere in France. Is it time to favor rail over road, to fight global warming? It could be a good idea to promote and heavily invest in train transport both for shipping and travel as a way to fight fossil fuel usage. Then the government could emphasize the fact that the men and women of the SNCF take extra pride in the work they do for historical reasons. At first there should be no discussion about their contracts. Developing and improving the quality of the services the SNCF offer will reassure these workers about the future of their jobs. Then modifications in their status, perhaps offering less job security and discontinuing benefits inherited from the past, would not alarm them when there is a plan lasting a decade or more designed to make the SNCF become more competitive in transporting both goods and people.

For those who think this is pure utopia, check out how much the Paris metro is being renovated, as well as the Parisian suburban trains and infrastructure. There is a huge amount of work to be done before people see a measurable result. Just the number of stations fully closed for months for a complete makeover the last ten years, gives a pretty accurate indication of the work’s scope.

You may think I am comfortable and not affected by this, but I recently waited over an hour in the cold for a train at a station in Versailles. This is sometime inconvenient to me, as it is to so many others almost everyday.

Best regards,

QUESTION

NAME CHANGE AND THE FRENCH ADMINISTRATION

I am an American citizen born in Israel and I moved to France about two years ago. Due to my age and medical condition, I registered with my local CPAM. I have had problem after problem with them. Nothing was good enough for them to register me. Now that I have the temporary number that means I am covered, they have refused my birth certificate and the documents proving my name change. My first name, chosen by my parents, was that of my paternal grandfather. It was a quite an oddity (I was never called by it), and we moved to the USA when I was young, where everyone called me Billy. So I applied for an official name change, which was fine for many years. Much later in life, it became evident that it would be a good thing to change again. I then chose David.
The prefecture reluctantly accepted all the paperwork, officially translated, of all this and I now have my carte de séjour.
CPAM refuses the same documentation even though everything is explained and clearly spelled out. They now want an attestation de concordance. What is that? Am I being discriminated against? What can I do to be certain that this is truly the last document they need? Frankly, I do not trust them anymore. How can I report this anti-Semitic discrimination?

QUESTION

NATURALIZATION AND NON-COMPLIANCE WITH FRENCH INCOME TAX FOR STARTING A BUSINESS IN FRANCE?

I came to France as an American holding a long stay visa. After a few years I managed by myself to become self-employed and got the related carte de séjour and I was very proud of myself. This year I got the carte de résident, which lasts ten years. So I decided that I would ask for French nationality and went to see a lawyer, who told me that I did not qualify because I was cheating on my taxes. I left the firm outraged at such an unfair accusation.
Every year I fill out the form sent by RSI, and I pay on time all the tax bills I receive from URSSAF, RAM, and CIPAV. I have a perfect record for that. Once a year I send my #1040 to the IRS. The lawyer mentioned the French income tax I was not paying. What was he talking about? As you can see, I have always paid my taxes on time!

First of all, I would like to wish all of you a very happy and prosperous 2018! French custom dictates that New Year’s wishes can be expressed until the end of January, so I have managed it a few hours before the deadline.

I was thinking of using the Beatles’ song “Yesterday” for the title of this month’s issue, but the melancholy lyrics are so much about the past that this song did not capture my message. For the first issue of 2018, this title seems too simplistic. New year’s resolutions are inspired by the feeling that something new and, of course, wonderful will happen during the next twelve months. What if we were to talk about what seems to be a radical change in attitudes towards sexual harassment? Or discuss the new French labor law? Or reflect on some significant changes in French taxation policies? I believe that these topics alone would legitimate my title.

We continue to see such situations evolving in both France and in the USA, and we are incapable of predicting what the next move will be, the next reaction of the populace. This is very unsettling for people who are used to predictable decisions. If there is one thing we have learned in 2017, it is that the “old” is fading fast and 2018 will see a lot of new things emerging, both good and bad. I continue to find it fascinating that the president of France is as unpredictable as his American counterpart, and that only one of them has been considered by some to be capricious. The two presidents resemble each other in their determination to implement their electoral promises now that they are in office. One could object that their promises were not of the same nature and would not have the same consequences, and this is absolutely true, but it is a definitive change to have presidents who are determined to have their pledges turned into legislation. So we are in with the new; this is certain and for many it means riding on a rollercoaster, an activity that very few of us enjoy. As for France, which I know better than the USA, there is an obvious need for a lot of radical changes. I just hope that France as a nation will benefit from the freight train of sweeping change and that not too many people will be led astray while this is happening. The new legislation that brings improvements should benefit everybody.

PROUST’s CONTRE SAINTE-BEUVE IN THE AGE OF HARVEY WEINSTEIN ?
Contre Sainte-Beuve (“Against Sainte Beuve”) is an unfinished collection of essays by Marcel Proust. Written between 1895 and 1900, it was discovered among Proust’s papers after his death and published posthumously in 1954. Three of the essays take issue with the body of work of the 19th century French literary critic Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve.

Proust is by far my favorite author; he stands apart from the rest. He is too often known only as an author whose sentences typically cover several pages of a book. Reducing him to his exceptional grammar skills is comparable to demoting him to the status of a well-trained monkey doing impressive tricks.

After recent events in France and the USA, I thought of the issues involved through the lens ofContre Sainte-Beuve. People unfamiliar with this 19th century debate might be confused by my choice.

Briefly, Sainte-Beuve believed that art, especially literature, was best understood when the reader knew the author’s life and intentions so as to put the work in context. Proust feels that literature, and art in general, is best appreciated on its own and that information related to the author distracts from or distorts the work’s message. While he does not discourage learning about the artist, and admits some benefits of doing so, in his view this makes the reader start becoming a critic, thus changing the focus.

The French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine have been studied in French secondary schools for decades and are considered the major poets of their generation. Rimbaud (1854-1891) influenced the modernist movement in literature and art, prefiguring surrealism. An excellent student, he started writing very young but left school as a teen and ran away from home. He completed the bulk of his literary output in late adolescence and early adulthood, then stopped writing at age 21. He and Verlaine had a sometime violent love affair, which lasted nearly two years. In later years, Rimbaud traveled as a merchant before dying of cancer at age 37.

Verlaine (1844-1896) was associated with the Decadent movement and is considered one of the greatest exponents of fin de siècle French poetry. After starting a correspondence with Rimbaud, he lost interest in his wife, Mathilde, effectively abandoning her and their son for the younger poet. Their stormy affair culminated in Brussels in July 1873 when, in a drunken rage, Verlaine shot at Rimbaud, wounding him in the left wrist, although not seriously. As a result, Verlaine was imprisoned for two years in Mons, Belgium.

Over a century later I have yet to meet a French school teacher who explains the personal life of these men when their poems are being studied. My question is, can the revered artist and complete scumbag coexist in the same person? Verlaine, for example, is a revered poet who was also a criminal who served two years in a Belgian jail. I believe he illustrates quite well that such coexistence is entirely possible.

So where does this take us regarding the current wave of denouncement of sexual misconduct by men? My initial reaction is to look at the gravity of the misconduct, as criminal law distinguishes between misdemeanors and felonies. Then the criminal justice system should do its work. These men are stepping down or being fired from their jobs because of public pressure, because their positions are incompatible with such misconduct. That is one side of the issue. The public eye and the media should be addressing the issue differently depending on the nature of the alleged misconduct. Some of the accused are facing or will face criminal charges, others not. In France as well as the USA, some had or continue to have prominent careers as artists but could end up spending time in jail.

On both sides of the Atlantic, living and dead artists are being described as despicable people – recent cases in the news, for instance, range from Woody Allen to the anti-Semitic 20th century poet Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and several other cases are likely to arise in the weeks and months to come. In many ways, it is an excellent development and people should know of the criminal activities. But I would prefer that the focus stay on the criminal aspect rather than tainting such men’s artistic output.

Hitler had a short-lived career as a painter, but his art is all forgotten. History remembers him as the Nazi leader of Germany in WWII. History is very good at discerning the most important thing to remember about a person.

AARO RECORDED MY 2 HOUR PRESENTATION ON DECEMBER 18

Here is AARO’s introduction to the video:

Coping with French Administration
It is rare that AARO has a presentation about immigration to a country, but since so many AARO members live in France, we made an exception. Jean Taquet and his wife, an American, are AARO members. He studied law in France and then lived in the United States for many years, becoming an associate of the Delaware Bar Association. Upon returning to France, through his contacts at the American Church, he became an expert on immigration to France. He was also a regular contributor to the now defunct Paris Free Voice.

French Logic
Jean started the talk by telling the audience that France is logical. This got a good chuckle, but he continued to explain exactly how that logic works. It starts with the French Revolution and having to deal with the old elite (aristocrats) and establishing a fair system for all to be equal under the law. This was achieved with the Napoleonic Civil Code. The way that France can maintain its republic is by treating all equally and that means through identity, not aristocratic rank. Identity is established by name, date and place of birth, domicile, and profession. Your name, your birth certificate, and proof of where you live and what you do. (Reporter’s note: In France, the extrait d’état civil, which is the birth certificate document, contains more than just your birth information, which is why the administration frequently wants to see a recent one.) That is the logic behind the constant request for documents.

The video is accessible on the AARO website at: https://aaro.org/events/event-reports/641-coping-with-french-administration

I would like to thank AARO for the opportunity; I really enjoy giving this kind of presentation, trying to liven up topics that by definition might seem quite boring.

FRANCE IS CHANGING ITS POSITION ON OVERSTAYING WITHOUT IMMIGRATION STATUS
For the first time, a client was nearly fined for overstaying the visa waiver program after being stopped by French police at the airport. The risk is still quite low; the fact that the person is not American may have made a difference. This is their account of the incident.

“When I left Paris at the immigration at the airport they noticed I entered in September. He was gonna charge me 180 euros but not my son, and then he said, ‘This time is fine, you don’t have to pay, but you can’t enter Europe for 6 months unless you get a visa.’ Then I explained and showed him my appointment at the consulate that I was going to apply for the visa to stay longer in France. He didn’t question the fact that I stayed over 6 months in a year but that I stayed 113 days instead of 90. I said we traveled around Europe during this time.”

This is a warning signal that should be taken very seriously.

THE TAXE D’HABITATION IS FADING OUT QUICKLY FROM JANUARY 2018 
Lower-income people are to be exempted from paying the taxe d’habitation under the new French tax law, fulfilling a campaign promise of President Macron. The estimate is that about 80% of households will not pay it by the 2021 fall when it is normally due.

Many question what will replace it, as it is the main local tax that cities and departments count on to balance their budgets.

The tax authorities have set up a simulation page to let people see if they will be affected by this radical change: http://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail

SELF-EMPLOYMENT IN FRANCE AND THE NEW LABOR LAW 
The question of labor law in France is currently a very political one. Several French leaders have fought the new legislation because of its decrease in the protection afforded to French workers. Even without taking a political position, it is possible to witness the rapid evolution of the French labor market.

I want to stay away from this debate, as I feel totally incompetent as a grammarian, whether in French or in English. I would just point out that English as it is spoken all over the world stigmatizes gender differences a lot less. And yet Anglophone countries are facing sexual harassment issues as much as France, and many other countries, for that matter.

For about 80 years the trend was always to protect French employees so they were secure in their jobs, with this stability allowing people to make long-term plans. The banking industry adapted to the situation as well, enjoying a financially stable client base. Similarly, landlords were supposed to be reassured by the stability of their renters.

The recent financial crises badly disturbed this picture, and for years now a high rate of unemployment has indicated that not everybody was enjoying the same security. The resulting labor market rigidity led to a significant increase in the volume of temp work, although the French administration and courts could, and often did, rule that several temp contracts that amounted to missions for the same job with the same company was in effect a traditional French labor contract. Moreover, even temp workers are employees, and therefore benefit from generous unemployment payments and cost a lot of money in social charges.

Former President Sarkozy tried to deliver on his main presidential campaign promise, “travailler plus pour gagner plus” (work more to earn more). But he failed to significantly change the legislation limiting the workweek to 35 hours and the overall amount one can work, in one or more jobs, to 48 hours a week.

However, there was never a limit to the number of hours a self-employed person could work. Hence, Sarkozy created a simple fiscal status that would allow people to work legally on the side instead of taking a second job, as is common in the USA. The loi de modernisation de l’économie, passed in August 2008 and in effect as of January 1, 2009, created the auto-entrepreneur status. It was intended for side jobs, but very quickly many unemployed people signed up for it as a way to get some work and be active again. As recently as 30 years ago, working as an independent and running your own business was frowned on. People who made this choice were seen as either too incompetent to get a normal job or crooks using the status to steal money from clients and cheat on taxes.

One very visible evolution in the labor market is that this stigma is almost completely gone. Today in many parts of the country, there is excitement about creating your own business, and some French people now admire those who do so. A significant portion of the French population now has this status. In 2016, 331,500 people signed on to be auto-entrepreneurs, an increase of 3.3% from 2015. That same year, 261,000 signed off, for a net total of 70,500 auto-entrepreneurs in 2016.

So many people holding this status has shifted the way employers view the situation. They no longer need to hire, and can have a labor force with no strings attached. Many employers dismissed their salaried employees so they could get auto-entrepreneurs to do their jobs. The English teaching industry in France is now dominated by this status. Even nannies and cleaning ladies increasingly have it.

The latest labor laws, passed on September 23, 2017, can only be understood with this background. The idea is that if French workers are less protected, employers will choose an in-house labor force over subcontracting. Among the many areas the new law covers are that dismissal is less difficult and severance pay less onerous, there is more freedom to reach agreement within the company, and working remotely is better defined. Clearly, for the first time in about 80 years (aside from WWII), a law has been passed that deregulates French worker protection. A few years ago, it would have led to a general strike, France would have shut down for days and the government would then probably have resigned. This is one way to see the sweeping effect of theauto-entrepreneur status. Of course, it is not the only reason; most people credit President Macron with being an excellent politician, able to pass laws the French would ordinarily have a great deal of trouble accepting.

For more info (in French), see http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2017/12/21/bienvenue-dans-la-societe-free-lance_5232996_3232.html

Best regards,

QUESTION

WHAT RIGHT TO WORK DO FOREIGN STUDENTS HAVE IN FRANCE?

I am an American on a student visa, and will be teaching English on the side. My student visa states “authorized to work limited to 60% durée légale”. I have been offered a teaching gig one day a week for three hours. My visa is to be renewed in a couple of months. My employer has strongly recommended that I then change my status to auto-entrepreneur so I may bill her with an invoice as all her other staff do. I would also be able to take on more teaching work. Everything I have read suggests that I should stick with the student visa, that auto-entrepreneur should be the last resort. What are your thoughts or recommendations?

QUESTION

WHEN THE LANDLORD GIVES NOTICE FOR THE WRONG REASON

I have rented an apartment for 25 years, and today I received a letter from the owner telling me I need to move out. The owner states that she intends to lodge her granddaughter and her partner in this apartment. I am 75, retired and live on a small, fixed pension that is too low to be taxable.

All this has come about because I asked the owner not to increase the rent over last year’s since I was already paying 50% of my income in rent, charges and apartment tax. Taking more money from those of modest means so that those who are doing well can do better doesn’t seem fair or logical.

• 1) Which family members does the law allow owners to replace tenants with?
• 2) What is the maximum allowable annual rent increase? My apartment owner says it is 2%.
• 3) Is the maximum increase retroactive and cumulative? i.e. if there was no rent increase last year, can the owner charge a 4% increase this year?
• 4) Is non-payment of a rent increase grounds for eviction?
• 5) Do retired seniors have any special rights to stay in their rental apartments? (Or which administration branch should I contact for this information?)
• 6) Can the notice be given by email?
• 7) Can she propose a smaller apartment in the same building?

Do I have any recourse in this matter?