Two weeks have already passed! It’s hard not to be
overwhelmed by the small issues of the everyday life. July 2017 seems so far
but I know deep inside that this will happen very quickly. Yet French school
holidays (from October 19th to November 2nd) took me much of my time last week
since my kids were at home.
But this week they are enrolled in Holiday Camps so
I can pick up the thread of my activities.
Current issues
During the past two weeks, we have somehow conducted
some tasks related to our scheduled departure:
- Banking and financial issues
On the occasion of our "Banking fees" issue
(explained in a previous article and not yet resolved otherwise) we finally met
our account manager. He drew our attention to the regulation about "banking
products". Indeed in addition to our current account, we have some other
bank accounts such as “Livret A” and life insurance. Nothing extravagant or
very profitable! Rather very common products that hold many people in France.
But during our discussions and since we decided to inform people about our
departure when the opportunity arises, the account manager told us that a lot
of banking products can’t be hold when somebody leaves France for an indefinite
period.
He indeed told us that the tax treaty between
France and the United States restricts many opportunities for people in our
situation, and even if some banks play on ambiguities and claim that the
flexibility is great, it’s not true.
It is therefore absolutely necessary that we visit
our local Tax Office to ask questions. And there is a second issue: what will
be the rule for our income tax in 2017? We’ll spend nearly half the year in
France and half in the US. But taxes in France are calculated on the basis of
the previous year (ie 2016, and this still for a year before the law changes)
while in the US, as far as I know, tax withholding is already the law.
A visit to the Tax Office is therefore required,
although like many people I feel that when you visit the Administrations, they
manage to prove that you owe them more than what you thought! I am not thrilled
with this perspective!
- School
I recently met a teacher of my oldest son (6th
grade) for a particular issue and at the end of the interview, since she
referenced a lot to the following years programs (7th grade, 9th
grade, etc.), I told her that in fact my son will not be in this middle school
next year.
I hadn’t talked about it before because I didn’t
want to "pollute" my son’s school year with this perspective. Indeed my
fear was that my son and his teachers anticipate too much the announced
departure, while he has enough to do during his 6th grade school
year, without projecting himself in to the future.
But the teacher asked me if I had talked to the “head
teacher” (who makes the link between teachers and families) and asked me to do
it as soon as possible! School announced recently that there will be a Parents-Teachers
meeting soon in November. So I’m about to announce this "news" during
the talks.
Our state of mind today
The departure seems far and I fear that the end of
the year concerns (organization of holidays, children's shows at their schools
and extracurricular activities usually very time-consuming, etc.) delay even
more our necessary attention from this dead line. I hope the blog will help me
to remember that date regularly so that we don’t lose time before our
preparations.
Libellés : English
