Actually this is just going to be about taxes since that alone is fun enough for one blog post. Before we start, just a reminder that we aren’t tax attorneys, so as with everything else on this blog this is just what we’ve experienced and not advice to you. So what kind of taxes can we expect to pay? If you rent a property and are living there on January 1, you have to pay a habitation tax that covers things like police and fire protection, street lights, road maintenance, and other services that anyone who lives in a community might use. Although it varies around the country, a rule of thumb is that it equals about one month’s rent. The owner of the property that you are renting is also paying a higher amount in property taxes. The third tax on that same piece of property is a daily resort fee of about $1 if it is rented out as a holiday home.

France and the United States have an agreement that, if we understand it correctly, you pay tax on the income you earn where it is earned. In our case, since we have pensions from the US, we would pay income tax to the IRS as we have always done. Since our visa prohibits us from getting a job in France we don’t believe that we will owe any tax overseas. Once we are able to join the national health care system we will pay a tax of 8 percent of our household income, minus an exemption of around $10,000, for that coverage.

Because we will be maintaining a small rental residence in Florida, a state that has no income tax, we won’t have to pay tax there.

Since sales tax is included in the quoted price of everything you see on display, we will not be paying that separately from the price of the item. This value-added-tax (TVA in French) of 20 percent is much lower on restaurant meals, transport, food, books and almost non-existent on drugs included in the national health system.