That's one of the "peculiarities" of the French tax declaration forms. Anything you declare on form 2047 needs to have been declared somewhere on the 2042 form, too. (This includes the 2042C - the C is for "complementaire") The 2047 form is simply detail on anything you have declared that is foreign sourced.

But both lines 210 and 240 on the foreign source income form are for income that allows for a credit equal to the French tax - which means you shouldn't have to give them any information on how much tax you paid to the US on it. Furthermore, if you're entitled to the credit at French rates, you need to list those sources of income in section 6 of the 2047 form, too.

Let's see if we can find someone here who has US source interest and dividends that they have reported and where all they need to show up on the forms.

 

Thank you Bev.
Hopefully there is US citizens and residents in in this forum who reported interest and dividends from us s.

 

You put dividends and interest in Section 2 of form 2047K. Dividends on line 210 and also line 221. Interest goes on line 240 and again on line 251. Then you have to put it in Section 6 Revenus imposable ouvrant droit a un credit d'impot egal a l'impot francais. Then on form 2042 put it on line 8TK. I also put a comment in the comments section just in case:
Selon à les articles 18 et 24 US/ Tax Convention, nous ne sommes pas imposé, nous
ne payons pas les impôts francaises ni les charges sociales sur nos retraites
americaines, ni les interets, ni les dividends.

I hope this helps.

 

You put dividends and interest in Section 2 of form 2047K. Dividends on line 210 and also line 221. Interest goes on line 240 and again on line 251. Then you have to put it in Section 6 Revenus imposable ouvrant droit a un credit d'impot egal a l'impot francais. Then on form 2042 put it on line 8TK. I also put a comment in the comments section just in case:
Selon à les articles 18 et 24 US/ Tax Convention, nous ne sommes pas imposé, nous
ne payons pas les impôts francaises ni les charges sociales sur nos retraites
americaines, ni les interets, ni les dividends.

I hope this helps.

You put dividends and interest in Section 2 of form 2047K. Dividends on line 210 and also line 221. Interest goes on line 240 and again on line 251. Then you have to put it in Section 6 Revenus imposable ouvrant droit a un credit d'impot egal a l'impot francais. Then on form 2042 put it on line 8TK. I also put a comment in the comments section just in case:
Selon à les articles 18 et 24 US/ Tax Convention, nous ne sommes pas imposé, nous
ne payons pas les impôts francaises ni les charges sociales sur nos retraites
americaines, ni les interets, ni les dividends.

I hope this helps.

On section 6 I only put the amount of my social security and reported this amount on 2042 8tx.but not the dividends and interests only in line 210 221 and 240 251.

 

You add your interest and dividends to your social security benefits on section 6, and then put the total amount on line 8TK. You seem to have put it in the wrong box, 8TX, it should be box 8TK.

 

So on section6 , you detail all your retirement s plus interest and dividends as well on section 2 for interest and dividends and total amount on 8tk and that will do the trick not to be taxed on these interest and dividends.

 

The French, in general, don't go in for tax preparers or tax advisors unless they have a small business or some serious investments in rental property. There are lots of "how to do your taxes" publications available on the newsstands in the month or two before the tax forms are due. ittedly these are all in French - but the impots.gouv site is starting to have quite a bit of information available in English (usually in their "international" section) but it pays to check there before you pay big euros to do your French taxes. (ittedly, there isn't a lot of detail about filling in the form 2047 on the Fisc site.)

About the only online tax prep I know of for individuals is ClickImpots - but now that it's online, you can very easily get all of the information translated using Chrome or one of the translator sites that will translate web pages - and the translations really are pretty good. The one caveat is that ClickImpot is a bit pricier than the US tax preparers online - this year was 126€ for the "base" system. But using it will go a LONG way toward helping you understand how to do your own French declarations.

 

Thank you Bev for your advice

 

I don't think one has to pay "big euros" to get French taxes paid, even if one is completely clueless and can't even fill out the forms with the correct numbers (in which case, frankly, you shouldn't have moved to a foreign country). You can get an hour's worth of tax advice for about 50 euros from an English-speaking expert if you need one, so I wouldn't turn to ClickImpots right away if I were having problems. That's about three times what you need to pay for an actual human expert.

And as I've said, you can just go to your Centre Financière with the forms and ask them to help you fill them out. You do have to be able to discuss your issues in French, though.

Of course there are people with incredibly complicated estates and tax issues that would require specialists, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here, and such people would obviously have experts on hand to deal with all of that for them.

 

I don't think one has to pay "big euros" to get French taxes paid, even if one is completely clueless and can't even fill out the forms with the correct numbers (in which case, frankly, you shouldn't have moved to a foreign country). You can get an hour's worth of tax advice for about 50 euros from an English-speaking expert if you need one, so I wouldn't turn to ClickImpots right away if I were having problems. That's about three times what you need to pay for an actual human expert.

And as I've said, you can just go to your Centre Financière with the forms and ask them to help you fill them out. You do have to be able to discuss your issues in French, though.

Of course there are people with incredibly complicated estates and tax issues that would require specialists, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here, and such people would obviously have experts on hand to deal with all of that for them.

Thank you Stcirq.
I am going to get an appointment with my local centre des impots.
Thank you again

 

Well, I think it's clear you didn't fill out the form properly, but your Centre Financière should be able to walk you through that.

As for speaking English or being familiar with the US- agreement, not a chance where I live, and I don't need it, but maybe you'll be luckier. I had some fairly tricky issues related to a deceased ex-husband and property ownership and deductions for eco-improvements and payments to local workers here, and they were very patient and helpful.

The good news is that you have until December of this year to get it all figured out.

 

Thank you

 

I hope I can find this thread when the time comes to file my first return next year. The panic is already setting in, months ahead...

 

Froggie, thank you for coming back with that "authoritative" info from the tax people. After years of dealing with the "shock and awe" tactics of the US IRS (no fault of theirs - they have been horribly underfunded for decades so they are reduced to "whatever works"), the helpfulness of the Fisc folks is often pretty startling. I'm sure there are LOTS of lurkers here who are very grateful for your sharing the information you got (especially the part about ticking box 2OP on the 2042 form).

 

Froggie, thank you for coming back with that "authoritative" info from the tax people. After years of dealing with the "shock and awe" tactics of the US IRS (no fault of theirs - they have been horribly underfunded for decades so they are reduced to "whatever works"), the helpfulness of the Fisc folks is often pretty startling. I'm sure there are LOTS of lurkers here who are very grateful for your sharing the information you got (especially the part about ticking box 2OP on the 2042 form).

Well, this was a new one for me today - this Box 2OP on Form 2042. It prompted me to go read a couple of articles online that I was able to find - and I'm still confused! The way I read it, this was introduced in 2019 and relates to the "flat tax" on all investment income unless it's tax-exempt. It's called a PFU and consists of 17.2% social charges and 12.8% income tax for a total of 30%. What's not clear to me at all is when it's advantageous to check the box and when it's not - for example, if all of my income from the US (pension, SS, bank interest) is eligible for a tax credit and it's all declared in Section 6 of Form 2042 - am I better off checking this box or is the relevant factor how much our gross income from US-based sources was in 2023? I can't figure this one out.

That’s what this forum is all about.Share informations about our own experience which can be beneficiary to others.It was the third time I went to my centre des impots in Draguignan and everybody was really friendly and helpful. The person I saw this morning didn’t know anything about the treaty. I show her the article 24 with the lines highlighted. She went to her boss and 5 mn later it was solved. There was an english lady there swearing the F word to an employee. It didn’t go well for her.

 

Actually, it's not a really simple question whether to take the option or not. In the tax prep software, there is the option to "use whichever option is better" (i.e. better meaning less tax). Depending on your "bareme" (think tax bracket), the program does a calculation both ways, shows them to you and you can see which one is to your advantage.

My husband has a bunch of investments (here in , not foreign stuff) to which this option applies - and this year, the difference between the two approaches was a whopping 10€ - but of course we elect to save whatever we can. <g> Depending on how much interest income you have coming in, you can try your luck with either checking the box or not ("do you feel lucky?"). Once you can file your declaration online, I think you can get a rough estimate of your taxes once you are finished filling out the forms online and before you submit them. Next year, you can try and see what happens both ways by revising your forms and checking the results again.

 

Actually, it's not a really simple question whether to take the option or not. In the tax prep software, there is the option to "use whichever option is better" (i.e. better meaning less tax). Depending on your "bareme" (think tax bracket), the program does a calculation both ways, shows them to you and you can see which one is to your advantage.

My husband has a bunch of investments (here in , not foreign stuff) to which this option applies - and this year, the difference between the two approaches was a whopping 10€ - but of course we elect to save whatever we can. <g> Depending on how much interest income you have coming in, you can try your luck with either checking the box or not ("do you feel lucky?"). Once you can file your declaration online, I think you can get a rough estimate of your taxes once you are finished filling out the forms online and before you submit them. Next year, you can try and see what happens both ways by revising your forms and checking the results again.

Thanks for that information. We didn't have that much interest income - around $8800 I think - so maybe it doesn't reallly matter.

 

In the columns marked "Déclarant" you want to indicate Déclarant 1 or Déclarant 2, depending on how you enter your and your husband's names and data on the first page of the 2042 form. Ultimately, they use what you have declared to calculate your rate of "prélevement" for certain elements of your French sourced income (when and if you have any). Ultimately you have the choice to use the combined prélevement rate or your individual ones.

But doing things that way definitely helps the tax office handle your forms. (It's not nice to confuse the tax people - also not a great idea.) You do need to maintain the same order (Déclarant 1 and Déclarant 2) from year to year. But it also allows you to each have your own tax on the Fisc website - and that can come in extremely handy down the road.

I'm not sure whether it makes any difference which one you put for a t - maybe "1 & 2 - t" and let them decide how to handle it. Which déclarant seems to be only relevant for current income (salary, pensions, unemployment, etc.)