Q & A

Subject: Paying taxes when living in France.

Question: We've already asked you a question through 'experts' but your site brought up questions about living in France. Do you have to pay both French and American income taxes on income made in France, or made on interest income held out of country? What do you do about health insurance?

Answer: As I understand it, unless you make a large amount of money, I think over $70,000 US a year in France you do not have to pay income taxes in the States. As for paying interest income my in the States, you will not have to pay French income tax on it. As I understand it most people in France don’t pay income taxes as we do, the system is different. In reality nether country will know how much you are making in the other. Normally as an American you must file a tax return no matter where you live. But this is not realy true as a few times when I was living outside the states I did not file a US tax return.
As for health insurance, you will need it to acquire a long term visa. Here is the one link that I have for health insurance, http://www.globalinsurancenet.com. One trick that lets you get around getting a long term visa without health insurance is to use your Social Security card as proof of health insurance. The French do not realize that we do not have national health insurance. Of course you will still have to pay if you get sick, so all this trick does is get you a long term visa and not health insurance.

Related Link:
http://www.americansinfrance.net/DailyLife/taxinfo.cfm

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