You are strongly advised to contact a chartered accountant with knowledge of the French and UK tax systems before filing any tax return in either France or the UK. UK chartered accountants can be found listed in the Artquest tax, pensions and accountants section in Managing your career.

See either the Self employment in France, Information from the Inland Revenue website, Maison des artistes or Rates of Pay sections on this page.

Self employment in France

European Union (EU) legislation gives every European Economic Area (EEA) national the right to set up as a self-employed person anywhere in the EU. If you are a self-employed person you may be exempt from paying social security contributions for up to 12 months providing you continue to pay UK national insurance and hold the exemption certificate E101. The form E101 is issued by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (Non Residents Helpline). This form confirms to the authorities in the host country that contributions continue to be paid in the UK and will prevent a demand from the French authorities for Social Security contributions to their scheme.

Centre for Non-Residents
Room BP 1301, Benton Park View, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE98 1ZZ
Tel: 0845 915 4811
Fax: 0845 915 7800
www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/
FAQ's page: www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/faqs_general.htm

If you want to establish your own business in France, contact the Agence Nationale pour la Création d'Entreprise (l'ANCE) in the region in which you intend to live.  See this section for contact details for specific regions in France.

If your intended business is in a trade or 'cottage industry' then contact the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie (also in English) or Chambre des Métiers (French only) in the region in which you intend to live.

If you have any queries on your tax position in the UK, you should in the first instance contact your Tax Office. If you do not know which office deals with your tax affairs, you should write to your local Tax Office - the address is in the phone book under 'Inland Revenue'. Give your National Insurance number in your letter, as well as your Self-Employment Reference number, also known as the Unique Taxpayer Reference or UTR (the 10 digit number you need to provide on invoices to prove your self-employment status).

You might prefer to phone the Self Employed Contact Centre (Tel: 0845 9154 655, weekdays 8.00am to 5.00pm) which deals with a variety of enquiries relating to self employed National Insurance contributions, issuing forms, answering bill and direct debit queries. You could also try the Self Assessment Helpline (Tel: 0845 900 0444, 8.00am to 8.00pm every day) which provides help and advice to customers completing the Self Assessment Tax Returns and associated pages, and general advice for Self Assessment.

You can also find contacts for the HM Revenue and Customs .

An excellent overview of the French tax system can be found at www.ciln.mcmaster.ca/papers/seconf/france.pdf. This PDF document outlines the different kinds of tax position available to residents and the difference between setting up a company and becoming self-employed. For people who will be working as employed people with a company or other organisation, check the guide given by CLEISS (Centre des Liaisons Europeennes et Internationales de Sécurite Sociale) on the French social security system. Another useful guide can be found at www.frenchentree.com/france-employment-work-jobs/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=2234.

Information on many tax and legal issues when working in France can be found on the Jobcentre Plus website.

Information from the HM Revenue and Custom website

The HM Revenue and Custom website contains most of the information you would need for taxation purposes when considering a temporary or permanent move to France, or other overseas destinations.

If you leave the UK to work full-time abroad under a contract of employment, you are treated as not resident and not ordinarily resident if you meet all the following conditions
- your absence from the UK and your employment abroad both last for at least a whole tax year
- during your absence any visits you make to the UK; total less than 183 days in any tax year, and; average less than 91 days a tax year. (The average is taken over the period of absence up to a maximum of four years. Any days spent in the UK because of exceptional circumstances beyond your control, for example the illness of yourself or a member of your immediate family, are not normally counted for this purpose.)

There is no precise definition of when employment overseas is 'full-time', and a decision in a particular case will depend on all the facts. Where your employment involves a standard pattern of hours, we will regard it as full time if the hours you work each week clearly compare with those in a typical UK working week. If your job has no formal structure or no fixed number of working days, the Inland Revenue will look at the nature of the job, local conditions and practices in the particular occupation to decide if the job is full-time. If you have several part-time jobs overseas at the same time, they may treat this as full-time employment. That might be so if, for example, you have several appointments with the same employer or group of companies, and perhaps also where you have simultaneous employment and self-employment overseas. But if you have a main employment abroad and some unconnected occupation in the UK at the same time, they will consider whether the extent of the UK activities was consistent with the overseas employment being full-time.

If you claim that you are no longer resident and ordinarily resident, the Inland Revenue may ask you to give some evidence that you have left the UK permanently, or to live outside the UK for three years or more. This evidence might be, for example, that you have taken steps to acquire accommodation abroad to live in as a permanent home, and if you continue to have property in the UK for your use, the reason is consistent with your stated aim of living abroad permanently or for three years or more

If it is necessary to calculate your annual average visits to the UK, the method is as follows:

- Total visits to the UK (in days) x 365 = annual average visits
- Total period since leaving (in days)

For this purpose, days spent in the UK in the tax year before the date of your original departure are excluded.

Suppose, for example, you leave the UK on 5 October 1997. The first review of the average of your visits is made after 5 April 1999, and takes account of your visits between those two dates. If you visited the UK for 30 days between 6 October 1997 and 5 April 1998 and for 50 days in 1998-99, the annual average is:

- 30 + 50 x 365 = 80 x 365 = 53.38 days
- 182 + 365 547

If you continue to remain outside the UK, the annual average is calculated as follows in reviews after 5 April in subsequent years
- after 5 April 2000 - include visits from 5 October 1997 to 5 April 2000
- after 5 April 2001 - include visits from 5 October 1997 to 5 April 2001
- after 5 April 2002 - include visits from 6 April 1998 to 5 April 2002.

After the third review the year of departure is dropped from the calculation. At each subsequent review the oldest year is dropped, so that there is a rolling period of four years being reviewed.

While you are away, if you plan to let out your home, this can affect your tax payments depending on how you are employed and how much other tax you pay. The leaflet 'Letting and your home' available as a PDF document or as a webpage explains the potential tax changes this might cause.

Letting and your home: PDF (2.2MB)
Information on letting and your home.

You are strongly advised to contact a chartered accountant with knowledge of the French and UK tax systems before filing any tax return in either France or the UK. UK chartered accountants can be found listed in the Artquest tax, pensions and accountants section in Managing your career.

Maison des artistes

Maison des artistes
90, avenue de Flandre
75943 Paris Cedex 19
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 25 06 53
Fax: +33 (0)142 25 10 93 / 01 44 89 94 43
Email: contacts@lamaisondesartistes.fr
www.lamaisondesartistes.fr
The Maison des Artistes manages the obligatory social security and national insurance of artists who are generally self-employed in France. Most artists from the graphic and visual arts sectors subscribe to this organisation to be officially recognised and authorised to make out invoices. Photographers, performers and artists working within the audiovisual sector subscribe to a similar organisation, called Agessa.

Rates of pay

Artists working in schools and other community settings (see the note on this type of work in the Public Art section) can expect to receive between €48-52 an hour. This is money that comes from the regional arts councils.

For information on the French National minimum wage, see www.insee.fr/fr/indicateur/smic.htm